I use carrara's modeling quite a bit, but not for modeling. I use it for modding content; read as fixing clothes most of the time. I just spent an hour the other day modding two wagons to make a medieval hay wagon. But from scratch modeling I always do in Hex.

Also I use the modeling in carrara for modeling features in to landscapes; drop in terrain prim, convert to vertex to model in roads, flats, rivers ect.

So I wouldn't want to see it removed, polish it up, make it more stable/easier to use. But I don't think it needs to be developed to be the modeler Hex is.

Assuming people that are using an older version of Carrara aren't interested; or shouldn't be, in upgrades to carrara is wrong. As has been said many of us are on limited budgets, and if the choices are updating to the latest version of carrara or paying this light bill which do you think is going to win. I'm trying to get by on a piddily little monthly stock dividend. I have a budget and the over priced C8.5 doesn't fit in to it.

More over as has been pointed out what version of carrara you can use depends on the comp you are running. Figure for some people the cost of carrara is negotiable compared to the cost of a new comp. Meaning just because some one wants C8 doesn't mean the comp they own can run it.

When I retired that old gateway; finally, it was so old that it wasn't good for much more then web browsing. When my last comp fried and before I got this comp I was back on that old gateway, I tried but rendering with C8/8.5 would bring it to a standstill for most of the day. It could run C8 but that was all it could do, and trying to work in a scene of any size bogged it down to frustratingly slow. For the most part scenes were unworkable.