Thanks for your replies. I see now that rendering is a separate process not to be taken lightly.
However, for web content there must be a better way. If you look at the flash templates for websites, many of them have 3d effects. I've modified several of these for flash intro's. The graphics had to be from a movie clip. Right now I'm using PlayBlast to make a clip, but it seems like there should be a better way to do this than grabbing frames from my screen!

So I'll ask again - Is anyone using Maya for web content???