Glad to see someone feeling good about max. I used max for quite a while until i realized i was just wasting time, even after mastering it. Let me point a few things that made me drop it: 1. Max is not too stable, it crashes too often no matter how much ram or processor power you got. 2. OpenGL accelaration sucks! Maya, XSI, C4D and LW fly compared to max. Also, as you mentioned, it's a memory hog. Those two combined make max one of the slowest interfaces on the market. 3. Plugins are a great thing to have but i don't want my renderer to be a plugin, to mention one. You spend a lot of money in 3dsmax and then you have to spend a lot of money on a plugin to get decent renders???? I thought it was part of the package... XSI (and now Maya) give away Mental Ray for free! I still use max for some specific work. Some of max's tools are unbeatable and some of the plugins are amazing, although you now start to see some of those plugins being integrated with other apps (like thinking particles). I think discreet has a rather arrogant attitude and they think they own the market. You see A|W, Avid, Newtek and Maxon lowering their prices and you see discreet making a statement on how good and expensive their software is! That shows little respect for the 3D community imo... I hope they assume a more humble position and start working on 3dsmax 6 listening to their users, fixing those stability issues and providing everyone with another great 3D app on the market!

Great thread!
I thought it would be too flamable but it's doing fine so far!

I think the choice of a modeler is related to what renderer and animation software you're using. I worked in 3dsmax for a long time and i modeled everything in AutoCAD. Now i work in Cinema 4D and all my modeling is done in C4D, except for the architectural models, those are still AutoCAD.
I love Rhino but exporting a mesh from Rhino to C4D is a nightmare! i hope Rhino 3 or C4D v9 will fix that.
I also love Mirai and Nendo for sub-d modeling since i can export clean meshes to C4D.
I'm trying to learn Lightwave, but i wish the interface was a bit more intuitive. Damn it... i've seen great models made in LW and some really great images... but everytime i try to learn it i fall into dispair!! I'll get over it...

One thing to keep in mind though... no software will make you a better artist. Hard work and lots of time will. Oh, and a lot of imagination is half way through.

I remember reading an article about rustboy (www.rustboy.com) and on how it was made in strata 3D!!!
It's not about the tools. It's about the man behind the tools!

:)