They are the same, people just use different terms when talking about them.

In terms of packages it depends what you find the easiest to use, but none of them are 'easy' as such. I've seen great stuff done with free programmes and rubbish done with Maya. The cost of the package isn't related to the art it can produce - that's in your hands. Conversely you see things in Maya that knock your socks off and things in free packages that even I can do - it's the user that makes the art, not the package.

Maya has a great toolset, loads of features and I think it is is great, but it is, like most things, easy to open, bloody hard to master. The more features something gives you the worse it can be to figure them all out. But having tried quite a few 3d packages I'd say nothing works in quite such a jolly intuitive way - I think it suits people with a certain way of working. But I don't think there are short cuts to brilliant work with any package, be it free or £6k.