I agree with the poster who said the interface is not as refined as Cinema 4D's is. At least on the Mac side, it looks like a bad Java app (anyway, it yells "PORT" at you). Very rough around the edges and not Mac-like at all. I used to use Alias PowerAnimator on an Indigo2 Extreme and the interface was much much smoother.

Maya itself totally rocks, and the PLE is a great move by Alias to let people learn it without pirating. Other than the "unfinished" interface, my only complaint is that the watermarking they put on the renders is a bit too extreme. It's hard to get a good sense of the image you're producing, and I don't think they really had to make it that bold to serve its purpose. Anyway, at $2,000 this program is a steal, well done, Alias. Now if you could just make the upgrades a little more reasonable...