lightwave has quite an old style interface, its animation tools are not as good as maya but some people take to the modelling style of no handles on components when moving or using a tool. Again it depends what you want to do with the software and what style of program you prefer.

Milkshape is for games really, i dont like it very much, i tend to do all my low polly work in somthing like wings3d, its free and has a much better workflow than alot of modellers/ 3d apps on the market.