Ultimately it comes down to how familliar with the work flow and tools in any 3d application. Maya and Cinema 4D are certainly high end and feature rich, but many of those features can be simulated with some ingenuity in other applications. the new version of Carrara, version 8, is itself very feature rich, especially the shading system. i have found Carrara to be more intuitive than other applications and is a good overall program to use. 

i personally prefer Carrara and find that combining it with DAZ Studio 3 Advanced, Bryce and Blender can provide all i need(especially since they work well with Photoshop and After Effects).  

granted i am very impressed with the client list of Lightwave and Maya, but im not sure that is the best measure of quality. try out the demo versions first