Is DAZ Carrera no longer a serious player?

[Gare]

After a HD crash and a backup (whew) I found and re-installed Carerra. originally Raydream Designer in the 1700s, and bopped around it a little.

In addition to having a UI similar to KPT used to have (slick, unintuitive, the talented folks who make ArtRage cobbled that when it was trendy), it appears to be an animation and rendering bundle in addition to modeling. I find the modeling features to be byzantine, but then again, this is 2009 software, and DAZ has a recent version up for $285.

$285 seems like a fair price for commercial software if you upward adjust for inflation, but I guess my real question is: is it worth bothering with, at any level, novice or professional?

Here's an example of a preset scene, using the highest rendering quality.



The lighting composition is very nice and the green light through the glass is a nice effect. However, the deal breaker for me is the glass. It looks like plastic, not glass. The metal caps leave something to be desired, too. I think Carrera just isn't up to date with physically-based modeling...the interaction between materials and lighting.

I pulled this real quickly from Maxwell Render. Yeah, there's a big price difference, but I'm trying to make a point here. Is Carrera worth it for an ambitious pre-vis artist?



I'm not trying to provoke, I'm not being a jerk. I'm just opening a comparison open to discussion.

I'm really not sure whether to keep Carrera on my drive, or stick with my familiar tools.

Opinions?

-g