Just wandering but you talk about a lack of tools. I can easy see whare maya wouldn't have the same tools as autocad. ( that sure dosn't meen that its not posible to have them ) but I'm wandering what tools do you think 3ds or lightwave has for this that are better ? could it be that just more people are using thoughs apps for that ? (keeping in mind that just becouse there used more dosn't make them better choises )

Just me personaly, I would be more conserned about render quality which as less to do with the 3d app even.