Those are very cool DustRider. I especially like the car paint. I've only seen the stock landscape scenes that came with Carrara 6 Pro. The one you showed is really quite nice. I suspect Vue may have a slight edge depending but it was designed from the ground up to do landscapes and atmospheres.

I like using HDRI lighting in Vue and I'm experimenting with it in C6P following a tutorial I found. I have DS3 standard but I haven't installed it. So far, to my eye, the Vue renders are the nicest but playing with using PoseRay to export scenes to Kerkythea and using HDRI there looks promising as well. As you say, all of them can produce excellent results, it's a matter of what comes easiest.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken