No worries Jay, I just wanted to clarify that I was not advocating the modo bevel. I was just trying to demonstrate for that starting topology that all three apps (maya, max, and modo) struggle to produce a proper looking bevel, and none of them produces a clean bevel.

The first programmer that does come up with a universally good bevel tool should win the noble prize! It's a very difficult problem.

One other helpful point I'd like to toss out there is that although going the bevel route can save on poly count vs. smoothing - it is very difficult to change or undo after the fact. So if you do not save your original object before beveling and you delete history then you have no easy way to change the bevel tightness without remodeling the base shape. I have painted myself in that corner many many times!

Whereas, with poly subd smoothing you simply need to adjust the support edges. Which is much easier and does not alter the base shape as beveling does.

I struggle with this all the time as I model in polygons - when to bevel vs when to smooth?