I prefer Blender too but you can also check out Modo Indie. It's meant for modeling subdivision surfaces instead of nurbs, but subdivision surfaces are quicker and easier to model than nurbs anyway. (Blender also has much better tools for modeling subdivision surfaces.)
They're all individually and together a texture. A texture is just surface detail, normals, AO, and diffuse all provide surface detail. When combined you get a complete surface detail. Originally, diffuse was the only form of applying texture, by changing the color of the pixels of the rendered polygons.
I'm trying to learn hard-surface modeling in max with Turbosmooth. My question is pretty much what the image says. Is there a better way to do this so that it doesn't pinch that way around the outside?