i can honestly say i gave maya more the 2 days. I was using maya for months b4 switching to max. I have a good understanding of maya, how things are done and so on. As far as modeling goes, i can model the exact same object on both softwares. But in maya it takes me much longer. What really pained me on in maya, im talking about maya 6 here. Thats when I cut off... maybe stuff changed now... was the fact of it not having soft-selection, able to select loops and rings automatically with one click, wide range of snaps.. and allot off other usefull things like that. simple cleverness that made modeling that much easier, Sure max is easier, and thats the reason i stayed with it. Im not saying maya is more difficult, im saying maya is alot more unpractical.
Analogy here,... say i was putting a bunkbed together. There was a lot of screws I needed to fit in, now, i have a choice. Use my power drill or a screw driver? Both will get the job done perfectly. But one tool might take 30 minutes and the other 5 minutes. Y bother with the former?