My earliest modeling experiments were in Bryce 3D, which must have been before Windows 98 was released. There were always primitives and booleans. There are metaballs in 5.5, my latest Bryce installation. I guess people can build with these sorts of things in Vue as well.

 At this point I have Lightwave 9.6, Modo 401, Amapi Pro 7.52, Carrara 7 Pro, Wings, Hexagon, Zbrush 3.5 and the beta of Blender with the slightly-less-maddening interface. (I've even learned to use a few of these modelers.) I guess that's where I've been, not counting the 3d texture and 2D paint programs, Poser and Vue.

Download my free stuff here: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.php?page=2&userid=323368