I would suggest looking very seriously into Blender before dropping so much money on Maya if you might not need it. Blender is essentially a competitor to Maya and Max, but it also has reasonably advanced sculpting tools now.
I've not tried it so I don't know how well it works, but you could try: http://tidalkraken.deviantart.com/art/Mender-maya-for-blender-BLENDER-2-6-ONLY-360834749?q=gallery%3Atidalkraken&qo=0
One thing that excites me about blender is that with the new customizable UI and bmesh integration, blender will probably allow me to come the closest to reproducing my silo experience than any other app. Something to look forward to at least.
Many Blender users treat it as something to be 'protected' from the demon that is standardization. B-Mesh got a lot of hate from Blender loyalists too. Imo the community has stunted its growth by constantly being on the offensive against such changes.
i working with blender almost three years, and give me a conflict, i hate how the others tools need to the other programs to make simple stuff like Uvs. blender get more strong with the time, more and more.
@hobodactyl Have you considered joining the #blender and #blendercoders channel on irc.freenode.net? Thats the best place to get answers and the developers will actively work to help find a solution if none exists. Also a good place to jump into helping with the development of Blender.