Carrara is a much more powerful and flexible program than Daz Studio or Bryce.  It started life as the old Ray Dream Studio program a long long time back and has evolved into Carrara.  Until very recently it was owned and put out by Creative Labs.  DAZ purchased it from them and has been steadily improving it through the last two versions.  I started working with the original Ray Dream Studio way back in late 1996.  I have used just about every version, but I still am amazed by how much I don't yet know about the program.  The best thing I like about Carrara is the great intuitive interface.  It is very very user friendly compared to other packages that are even close to comparable.  It only takes a short time to get used to.

I agree, Mark's tutorials are the best out there.  He does things in a logical manner and is very clear and precise in his lessons.

I hope you enjoy using Carrara.  It really is a fun program to use.