I agree that Carrara, particularly with the excellent plug-ins, is still a contender. It will also run just fine on my older render hardware (non-AVX) with GRID.

I have not given up on VUE just yet, but no way I am paying $75 a month for what appears to be the equivalent of the old VUE Infinite just for hobby use. One of their Tech Support folks stated that you could subscribe to Creator ($20 per month) and switch your subscription to Pro ($75 per month) for a month or two to export and stuff, then switch back. That does not seem so bad (although I do not like subscriptions!), except I can't actually find that option anywhere on their site. Keeping a close eye on all this.