Maya was state of the art ten years ago and as much as I rag on it, it still has all the basic modeling tools you need. There are many reasons why Maya's modeling tools are lacking tools found in packages like Modo and Max and I have mentioned a few. What Maya does offer that Modo and other packages do not is support for the entire production pipeline (as HD eludes too).

I would like to see Maya's modeling tools brought out of the dark ages and I honestly think autodesk might do it. The problem as I see currently is they inherited Maya from alias and as a programmer myself I can tell you trying to update someone elses code simply put sucks ass! I spoke to some contacts I know at autodesk that came over from SGI and apparently one of the reason Maya 2012 is so freaking ridiculously unstable is that they are making significant changes to the core routines. Once these are done and stable as I hear it they plan update the modeling tools. We have already seen some of the modeling features of Max incorporated. It is my hope that they might look at newer packages like Modo and incorporate some of its tools. I also believe plugins like Nex or its feature set should be added to the base Maya package, like they added the graphite tools to Max.

Until then Maya is what it is. I continue to use it bugs and all and I do not use any of the other pipeline features so I really could care less about them. I know they are important in a production environment but I do not use them, however, I continue to use Maya because I have become accustomed to its user interface and I have through practice, head banging, cursing, and fits of rage figured out how to do almost anything that I can do in Modo. For the few things I cannot I import to Modo and back to Maya. I even jump in and out of Max and Lightwave. Every package has a couple nice features that can make life easier.

Still waiting for NextLimit to get on the ball and incorporate them all into a single package as he is the resident programming guru!