i don't find the blender interface particularly weird or harder to learn than other 3d software. you just have to give it a chance for longer than a few hours. it is worth it. but it also always depends a bit on what you are used to and have used before. i learned 3d modeling and animation with houdini and maya and in my opinion max and truespace have the most horrible guis and workflow i have ever seen. i wasn't really able to become friends with the xsi gui either.

blender 2.5 will have a more customizable gui which should enable presets which make blender easier to learn for users of other applications.