Since I think your homouring me, I'll be homoured!
Not humouring you at all. The name rings a bell, I believe I have seen him around here, that's about it. I really don't come here that often anymore.
Its your choice, stay with Max and buy a commercial 3D Engine license, or go with XNA for free, see what happens, if it works out, great, if it doesnt, well, it doesnt, there's always Max to fall back on!
Thanks for your view on XNA (and to those who have shared their views). Falling back isn't really an option, if I choose something, I am stuck with it for the next 2 years most likely (because the employeer will stick most of his asset creation guys into this art path).
From the looks of things, I will probably go into C# (since its not a huge learning curve from c++ over all), and just port to XNA when the time comes.