Wow, thank you all for the quick and very in depth replies!  Cybermonk, I think you are right.  That is going to be the only way to do it, unfortunately, because it will take a lot more time in some cases, and workflows.

Zandar, I particularly appreciate your effort in helping here, but as luck would have it, that technique of inset/extrude individual is NOT the same as the bevel command in 3dsmax.  Here's why:

I create a simple cube.  In normal everyday cases, If I were simply doing this exercise for real, I'd do the mirror technique suggested earlier.  But for the sake of argument, and proof of concept, I'll just use this as an example of a possible situation.  Here is the cube in Blender, using Inset followed immediately by extrude individual.  It "almost" works, but is not the same.

And here is the same kind of cube, with same faces selected, but with Bevel operation in 3dsmax.  Notice all it is doing is extruding individually, but then instantly scaling those faces appropriately along their local NORMALS, without switching tools or using hotkeys, just a mouse click.

The 3dsmax Bevel result is what I want.  In the same uninterrupted workflow.  Unfortunately, it's not possible on objects which are not mirrored in Blender, without manipulating the pivot, as Cybermonk mentions.

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.