And to see a bit of what is possible take a look at this: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Nodes/Sverchok This is procedural node based modeling like the grashopper plugin in Rhino. I haven't tried it myself yet, but looking at the pictures it could be pretty nice. Who knows, maybe it is possible to get something ICE like into Blender... But well, I really hope Softimage will continue in some way. The referencing/instancing/ICE/rendertree workflow seems unbeatable right now. As for the Blender UI and navigation... one can get used to it (easy for me to say since I started 3D using Blender).
cheers, Thomas
