Agreed, Very few seem to find Blender that intuative but it's free, and rightly or wrongly, those starting out on a 3d journey are going to be drawn to it for that reason.I don't get your beef about hotkeys though. As more features are added, you need to access them and quickest way I've seen is via that radial array in Maya/Blender or hotkeys. I use hotkeys all the time because it suits the pace I work at.

I can't speak for Morkonan, Mark, but I have a similar opinion when it comes to Blender, and only for Blender.  I don't know if that is what he actually meant.  I'm sure he will reply in turn. Hotkeys and shortcuts are an absolutely essential and crucial part of any 3d application worth its salt; and any application which does not utilize, or have the ability to set or customize, hotkeys should be avoided like the plague.  A package which does not support hotkeys or keyboard shortcuts will not grow with you, as you become a more seasoned modeler.  Imagine having to access icons for heavily used features like adding edge loops, or making extrusions, perhaps hundreds of times per session.  This would become laborious and cumbersome as you became more proficient.  It would slow you down, and ultimately take forever to model things.  That said, the use of keyboard shortcuts should be something you grow into learning, and incorporated into your workflow at your own pace .  Entry-level beginners should still have access to features through a UI icon, if they wish.

The "problem" with Blender when it comes to hotkeys is that some features in the software are not accessible through the UI, and can only be done with a keyboard shortcut.  For example, making a marquee selections on element groups in Edit mode.  The circle and box marquee tools are common selection tools in most other applications, which can be done without engaging a hotkey (even without entering a "mode" for that matter).   In Blender, this can only be accessed with the help of a keyboard shortcut.  Blender is one of the only 3d applications I've ever used where this is the case, and to someone just learning 3d at an entry-level, this could be a bad thing.  It forces them to immediately memorize something that is not part of the fundamental learning process they are trying to accomplish.  There's a reason the developers chose to do it this way, of course, but even for an advanced user coming from another package, this can become a sticking point, along with so many other hotkey combinations required to do various things.  Of course, the professional Blender user would argue this is the streamlined nature of the software, and to simply read the manual if you're starting out.  However, not everyone has a decade to spend learning.  This is why I feel the pie menu addon  should be a default required feature in Blender, to cut back on the amount of hotkeys a user will need to recall.  I believe this was one of the arguments raised by outsiders as to why Blender has not been quickly picked up and used by many industry professionals yet.  No studio has the time and resources to train their staff to learn the unorthodox UI and keyboard shortcut system Blender uses.  There's no official company tech to call upon to assist in training either; no official customer support, as some paid professional software does have, for their larger registered clients.

Hotkeys should be something a user chooses to use, and absolutely should use, when they're ready to speed up their workflow.

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