That's because most people know only a very few of the tools, even the BIG names out there are totally ignored. An example? Who knows "Houdini" from Side Effects? I would guess nobody beside me here ever heard it... and guess what it is THE used in big movies to create explosions, smokes or many other special effects.
Softimage? Maybe a bit more people knows it, yet (beside it's now dead), it's still a mostly unknown product.
There is a lot more beside 3D Max (which is really bad), Cinema 4D, Maya (which is good mostly due to it's scripting) or Blender (which is known because it's open source).
3D softwares are like the IDE of the 3D artist. Some offers nearly the same toolset while others offers a lot more for less money. Modo is pretty cheap if you compares what it can do and how much the others ask for. It is also one of the most flexible tool I ever used. You can completely re-organize the GUI, redo all the buttons and menu, code it in Python, or call the engine from the command line. Yet it's not a "toy". It's usually not used by kids due to the price and the fact you will more hardly find a pirated version that 3D Max
