Wow, I didn't think XSI would have become such an alternative $$. I usually see XSI at the bottom of many preffered lists. Even CGtalk keeps it low in the listings. I checked out the link that vlad posted, and I wasn't really impressed enough. I would like to see a better demo of it's capabilities before I'm sold on it. I usually go by the way of, "the cheaper the app, the more you have to spend on plugins and versatility".

Thats what you had to do with Max. Although it was alot cheaper than Maya, you had to pay extra for all the plugins just to bring it up to Maya's level, or so I was lead to believe.