I can't agree more with your words, Chosen. (can I print the post and pin on my wall? )
I'm doing mesh clothing for SL now, and took a while to figure out how to make good meshes suitable for SL.
But I come from a (self made, sic..) learning process on Blender, from the basic of modeling to texturing, weighting and so on.
I had so much fun doing the basic to advanced tutorials in 3d modeling, from subdividing a sphere to carving a funny face in and make it laugh, that when I started doing mesh clothing I could easily concentrate on design and particulars, and SL importing bug fixes.
For what I have seen (just a glance, Maya is my next step) Maya is a powerful and complete software, with an affordable learning curve.
I'm still a "3d noob",and for that I continue to do tutorials: this is the best way I found to escape frustration, in my personal experience. If you do like that, you will see that 3d modeling is not rocket science, and you find your personal smooth workflow.
Another thing that helped me a lot for SL, is to follow tutorials on 3d modeling for games, once you have the basics.
Good luck for your future creations
P.S.
I never learned to make proper sculpties...too many limitations