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ALL programs were supposed to be able to do eco-system painting within their respective programs. And now for 7.5 they tout one of the "new" features as eco-system painting within the appllication. What's up with that?

Not completely true, e-on always said painting in those apps was the ultimate goal, but wasn't possible at the time Vue7 was out, be it because of software architecture, or lack of communication between dev teams. So this time they were able to add XSI, but not Maya nor LW.