Not heard the Maya 9 rumour, but when a new version of any software comes out you always get "why are you getting that version, there going to bring a new one out soon and your money will be down the drain"

To be honest, I think that Autodesk will keep Maya (I might be wrong), hey they have done it with some CAD software takeovers they've been involved in (I mean left the taken over software as a sepperate app but made it have more generic Autodesk features) but they will add more of max's features (probably try to intergrate the transfer of files from one to the other with regards to fluids, cloth etc)

As for getting advertising e-mails thats par for the course, your on a mailing list and they want money out of ya!

I think that one of the big things that people have against Maya 8 and it becoming more MAX like is how you click on the grid to get a primitive shape rarther than it appearing at the 0,0,0 position, this option can be disabled. Also the menus have changed quite a bit, who knows if this wasn't an Alias upgrade?

All be it I do feel that Maya 8 was a rush job to get the Autodesk name, and new logo on it and give a sign that Alias are no more.

As I've said before its a bit S^%t that theres no documentation, does anyone know if this is the case with Max 9??