Of course, a dedicated aplication must be better than a complete package, like Maya. After all, programers can concentrate in make just a specific part of the proccess, and the program will be focused just in that too. What software a person will use depends on the destination that person has in mind. I became curious, and downloaded Silo, to see how it works, and yes, it's wonderfully easy to use, and has all tools Maya has, plus a couple more. It's a great alternative, if you want just do models. But what about rigging, animation, texturing, rendering? The greatest advantage here is the price. Silo is really cheap. But I believe ZBrush, altough a little more expensive, is more useful as it allows you to do entire scenes with a considerable quality.
And what about Wings3D? Has anybody here tried? It's free.