I have to say something about modeler since I used many of them at my work. I started with blender when I was In hi school 7 years ago ( it was the beginning of blender I guess) and then I switch to lightwave which is crealy morre powerfull and handy, after lightwave I was a bit stuck with the texturing. I Started game modeling and it wasn't this easy to texture my character. After two year I started working with 3dsMax at university. I learned it just to do my project and get my grades. I finished by learning maya for my job and I find it really handy and the ui more controlable than lightwave and 3dmax. Of course without the need for my job I wouldn't afford such a price.

But What I've learn is more important than the UI is the modeling process, the texture workflow and the animation can be learn in any of this package. Then It will depend on how good you are to use the tool in a proper way.

I have to say if you just start you won't find any diference between lightwave and blender or blender and maya. Even if the diference is huge( I mean it)

It's better to learn from something free first because by the time you'll learn how to model an organic model maybe the product will be in another version already.

I use modo and as frank says it a great tool.