The interface/UI isn't the problem. Personally I find the UI's very similar. Sure things have a different names and they're in different places but that can be overcome quickly.
I'm talking about workflow. An offhand example say I want symmetry. In Maya I select my mesh in the viewport, shift right click and choose symmetry. Maya is smart enough to know I want symmetry on the selected object. It's still doing the same thing C4d does. It's creating the node and connecting it to the mesh but it does it for me. If I want i can go into the nodes and do much than C4d can do but more often than not I just want symmetry on the selected object...so Maya does it, asks me which plane to cross and I'm good to go. When I'm done with symmetry I shift right click again and turn it off. No need to drop the mesh out of the node then delete the node then re select the mesh .
Same thing with smooth preview. Smooth preview is something that gets turned on and off a million times when your modeling. In C4d you have to create a node and drop the Mesh in. Maya is smart enough to know that the object you have selected is the one you want smoothed. To turn it on or off I just hit the 1 or 2 on the keyboard. In C4d I have to create a node, I have to go to the object manager, drop the mesh into it and then click a tiny little radial button every time I want it on or off. And BTW after I turn it on or off I now have to reselect what I was working on.
There's tons of other examples. Also once you learn to use mayas marking menus you can pretty much turn the entire UI off. And access every aspect of via marking menues that function off of 3 hotkey combination that give different options depending what you have selected.
I could teach you to use it it one hour.
Then there's the fact that there's no construction history which is a deal breaker for any serious modeler.
I know there's the whole "your first is the one you love" but seriously that's not the case here. Maya is layed out in a more efficient and logical way and i quite certain I can prove it.
Mayas whole pro workflow is based around radial menus. C4d has ONE and the things they chose to put in it are ridiculous. Open project? Initialize plugin? A radial menu should have the tools you use most...for the amount of times you open a second project during a work session it makes sense to have to go up to the proper menu to do that. You don;t put that function right at your fingertips and then put the important stuff under bizzarre shorcuts that that all start with U or W. U or W? Who's idea was that? I either have to mave my left hand to the other side of the keyboard or I have to take my left hand off of mouse.
Sure I can customize all that but the fact that it's set up that way by default speaks to the design flaws inherit. In maya EVERYTHING is done through a brilliantly logical system using combinations of SHIFT, CTRL, SPACEBAR & Right Click...of course ALT Left Click is navigation so the entire interface is literally right at your fingertips.
There's no having to learn 50 differrent two letter combinations that you have mover your entire arm to reach.
Maya's interface is WAY more intuitive, intelligent and faster. Maya knows the difference between a key tap and a key hold...another reason why the entire tool set is put under your left hand without ever (hardly) having to move it from the position you navigate from. Basically my experience so far with C4d after watching about 30 or 40 hours of Lynda training through my works group account is that it takes 2 or 3 or even more steps to do what Maya does in one. Maya can be harder to learn because it goes much much deeper than C4D. If you want to get into connecting up nodes in custom ways and deep into the Attribute manager then yah...it goes way deeper than C4D. If all your doing is basic modeling...extruding, inseting, sliding, offsetting, beveling, pushing, pulling, etc...than May slaughters C4D in workflow speed and efficiency. Not to mention it's modeling toolset is unmatched. Sure theres an occasional crash but that still 100x faster than dropping stuff in and out of nodes & nulls all the time. You spend half your time renaming generators & effectors so your Object Manager doesn;t turn into a nightmare.
Nobody, in my opinion or that I know, would leave Maya for C4d for any reason other than the price. I'm trying because of the price and because I use the mograph module which is better than Maya's. I figured if can get on board with the modeling module of C4d then I don't need two applications.
I'm not sure what your experience is working with other applications which is why I asked in what way you thought C4D was the most intuitive and innovative.
I was hoping for some reasons other than you being comfortable with the UI. I was hoping for some real reasons to stick with it. The only reason I can think of sticking with modeling in in C4D would be to stick another feather in my cap, so to speak. Looks good on a resume, you know. But honestly....I'm the kind of guy that if I had an interview with a studio and they told me they use C4D in their modeling department? i don;t know if i would want to work for them. lol.
Yah...it has nothing to with the UI.