If blender is too hard for you, forget Maya/Max/XSI - they are 10 times harder to learn.
I have never been able to do anything useful with Blender. The mouse gestures are so similar that I keep doing something completely different from what I intend. I've seen what it can do, but I can't seem to figure it out. I'm kind of a jump-right-in-then-read-the-manual-when-I-have-a-problem kind of guy. Blender is not very intuitive.
I use LightWave but it runs upwards of $800 so I don't suggest it for the casual modeler. My understanding is that Maya has a similar control to Lightwave, but I personally have never used Maya so I couldn't tell you for sure. Lightwave is easy to learn but takes awhile to master.