For me Blender just keeps getting better and better, After you learn a few important hot Keys and how to tweak the interface. Its really is easy to use IMO. Video tutorials are always a help too.

At that aside its all bout how you use the software not what software you use. Finally the more you know the better i say. :)

Instead of having one centralized modeling menu you have those menus also in the view ports.
but that is more a minor issue.

when they know Rhino this si something new to learn - but nothing impossible to learn.

However I think when the menus are more consistent and organized
there will hardly be a complain anymore.

claas

I would not say that one way is superior.

With SDS you are always restricted to your low polygon mesh.

With NURBS you need to plan ahead a bit more.

But with NURBS support like in Maya where multiple patches can be blended
together to prevent continuity problems and trim possibilities, it is quite a powerful
system. In Maya it is also fully animately.

How do you want to stitch a highly detailed ear mesh to a head with SDS? you mesh count
has to match. No problem with NURBS here.

SDS are much faster to lay down proportions and make fast and quick explorations.

Each one shows a trade off. A combination of both in one tool would be a dream.

It also depends on what you want to model.

As for the UI, I learn't to model in wings3D so moving to Blender was:
1. Hard because the controls were completely different.
2. Easy because the UI looked similar in many ways.

I tried max but I didn't like the UI and all the windows based UI.

Anyways, this is the first article I've read that said blender's interface was simple and good for beginners. I'm assuming he also said it was easy. Other's I've read said it was hard.

Haha I made a comic in blender about Blender and Max :P