Yeah, anyone with great skills will work hard at mastering the program of their choice, but were talking about Maya vs. the competition here. In my opinion, one can work months with one program with medicore results, and weeks with another and achieve fantastic results. For example, how long would it take to make a photo realistic pic of a jet fighter with Max compared to Maya?

Im by no means experienced enough to use Maya with any impressive results, and I have never used Max or the others, im just speaking hypothetically here.