At the time of blender's old ui 3Ds max had menus nested 5-6 level deep in an ui that would make gimp very good design. Between that 3Ds max praise, conflating old blender ui and new blender ui, and not providing any specifics on what makes blender so bad (I just provided some about 3D max) I have to assume there is no truth to it. We will agree to disagree. I think blender ui is excellent, but a 3d editor is a specialised app.

The question was which one do you think has a good UI... I'd be keen to know your opinion on this as well, what you think the current high water mark is in 3D design software UI is, or do you think they all suck, but Blender just sucks the most?

I learned on blender and now all the other editors are ruined for me. I wonder why they haven't added a blender mode at this point for people who want more expressive use.

Zbrush is ok.

With 3Ds Max listed as good UI we really must just have different tastes, hah! :D

You've given quite a list of tools with different purpose.

For 3D work I would personally rate

Modo 3D, Zbrush > Blender, Houdini > Softimage XSI > Maya > space intentionally left empty :P > 3Ds max

Blender UI looks very nice and is very customizable. I think it's "ok" in beginner discoverability (none of 3D softs is great at that really) but when you get experienced with it it's one of the best.

I really like how they managed to keep all the tools and views pretty consistent given how many things you can do in it. Whether you are working on objects, vertices, nodes, movie clips you get the same shortcuts where possible.