I've re-discovered  Cinema4D ver 6CE that has been included free on a few magazine cover cd-roms. After evaluating demos of Hex and Silo, I'm of the opinion neither of these apps would give me any thing C4D does not have... Other then maybe some better uv mapping/texturing tools...

It also has been suggested Blender for uv mapping would be a nice compliment to Cinema4D and Wings3D. No interest in using Blender for modelling though....

Thanks you all for your kind responses...