Well I guess I'll be the black sheep and suggest Maya.
I started to learn 3D Modeling and Animation in college through 3D Studio Max 2.5 (I believe) and liked it at the time.
Then I went back to college after a year or so and they switch from 3D Studio Max to Maya 4.
At first I didn't like Maya and found it confusion and cumbersome..... but once I figured out it's GUI and how things operate, 3D Studio Max to me was limited, even more cumbersome than Maya and I seemed to end up having to do more work to do something that's pretty simple to do in Maya and never looked back.
For me, Maya is far more in-depth..... when it comes to working on Textures, Maya has a crap load more features and abilities to use, which are basically limitless.
I just find Maya a lot better when it comes to navigating, switching views.... and when it comes to modeling something from scratch, be that Poly's, Nurbs or SubDivs.... Maya works a lot better.
I made a tutorial back in the old RedOrchestraMod forums on how to build your own StugIII in Maya, step by step, starting with a mere 4-sided poly cube.
I tried to look for the old forums online and to find that thread again, and while the main page of the forums is located on that WayBack Archive site, nothing else seems to exist.
Which sucks, cuz I could use a refresher course. Back in the UT2004/ROMod Days, I do believe Maya was the weapon of choice for most users of the Unreal 2 Engine.
But all in all, 3D Studio Max..... Maya..... whatever works for you and whatever flows the best for your tastes is what you go for.
There are piles of resources online for both Maya and 3D Studio Max..... Tutorials, Plugins, Free Models, Textures, etc etc....
http://www.creativecrash.com/
^ This site used to be called Highend3d.com back when I was in college, but switched over to this site. Check out the resources / tutorials, as well as other people's samples of work/design.... quite an impressive selection of content.
Both programs have their pros and their cons.... either can look cumbersome and impossible to use, as well as frustrating.... If you don't find the right resources to follow.
If you find the right resources and tutorials to explain things very clearly and straight forward, everybody and their monkey could use either program with ease.
Maya also has a number of brush tools, as well as many pre-loaded effects, etc...... they've also organized their tools bars according to what you're working with and can easily cycle through all the available tools by using the F-keys or going through the various tabs below those.... as well as being capable of customizing your own tool bar(s) to keep all the things you use in one spot, rather than cycling through different sections to use what you need.
For me, the variety, the customization of the GUI, the texture capabilities, the rendering processes, the detailed lighting..... and a pile more things in Maya will always win me over.
Some say 3D Max is more simple to use compared to Maya, which in some cases is quite true..... but for me, it's too simple and sometimes the things I want to do that I can easily do in Maya, are limited and end up being more work in 3D Studio Max simply because its options are too simple..... it limits me.