Consinstency. Maya feels like a collection of tools. Every tool work different, like being the target the last object or the first object. In SI we had more uniformity in this aspect so we could get used quite quickly to any new tool. A simple example, in SI you hide objects with H. Do the same with components and you hide components. In Maya well, you don't, you have to learn how to deal with objects and components separately.
Drag & Drop, simple aritmetic functions in the numerical input boxes, camera roll hotkey, duplicate-extrude, memo cameras, repeat middle click, edit multiple ppgs, link ppgs attributes with drag & drop, etc. All those little things that made SI so easy and fast to work with. SI feels like they were actually thinking in a effective, easy and fast workflow. Maya is just a bunch of tools and icons spread all over shelves, menus and submenus, and more tabs and tabs under them. Keyboard remapping a little more user friendly. Right now, It is quite a mess to search commands. SI wasn't perfect either in this aspect but it was far better in the GUI. I still don't know how to search custom commands in the Hotkey Editor, you can't can you? I've always created a new user command that called a custom command(script) so I can assign this to a key. Something similar to the MCP panel with Transform, Reference Planes etc. to be able to manipulate subcomponents with precision on the fly. And/or do something with that obsolete Component Editor. Alternative Keyboard option or remap navigation tool option for lefties. I'm not a lefty by the way. I really don't care too much about icons and text. Text is better for me too, but the point isn't making Maya look exactly like Softimage. Besides, you have text all over the menus (almost every icon has its text version in the menus), every icon displays a command name in the status bar when you put the mouse over them, and a lot of them have a description pop up. Martin
