Quote - I don't know if this will help, but we host a set of Blender tutorials designed for complete newbies.  It covers how to do the same things in two of the apps you mention and in Blender.  Might be helpful in comparing concepts.

It's weird to me that people disagree with re-skinning blender.  Anything that can be done to make the transition easier for users of other applications is a Good Thing in my book.  I view it as a shame that more development effort isn't put into doing stuff like this, or at least into making it easier for others to "re-skin" Blender.

Why shouldn't Blender come with a LightWave skin, a Maya skin, heck even a Bryce skin?  Of course, there should always be a Good Ol' "Normal Blender" skin - after all, you don't want to alienate your existing user base by turning the software into a clone of other apps!
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You know, when Twingy and I started the nurbana project many years ago, that was one of the key features we wanted to put into it - the ability to 'skin' it so it looked and felt like what-ever other application the user was used to, whether it be lightwave, Maya, 3dsMax or Blender.

I think it's an excellent idea. Of course, given the efficiency with which you can use the original Blender interface, it would be a shame for blender newbies never to get to experience the joy that is Blender because they have an alternative skin to use.