I found this while browsing and thought other’s might like to see it, I did a search to see if it had already been posted but came up with nothing.
http://wiki.cgsociety.org/index.php/Comparison_of_3d_tools
It’s a comparison chart of 3d tools and their features.
slightly off topic, but what exactly is the difference between softbody simulation (which blender has)and cloth simulation? I always used SB for simple fabric/cloth simulation and they work fine.
mpan3,
cloth has self intersection is the biggest, and cloth usually has a dedicated solver.
LetterRip
Softbody is for soft things, like flesh or jello. Cloth is for cloth.
/me stop wearing jellos to school 
Blender is going to overtake them soon, seriously. They put “no” for flame and smoke. Those are the big “effects” that are missing. We DO have softbody self-collision, in CVS for 2 months at least, but the new Cloth modifiers are coming soon.
I’d say the biggest missings we have are bindable keys/mouse/menus.
One biggie I think is missing for Blender Internal is caustics. You normally don’t want to use Yafray for animations, and what if your animation scene has a close up of a stream or lots of glass in it? People are going to notice that the pretty light at the bottom of the stream isn’t there, even if they don’t know what it is technically.
Ive seen this comparison before, And I liked what it said…
One biggie I think is missing for Blender Internal is caustics. You normally don’t want to use Yafray for animations, and what if your animation scene has a close up of a stream or lots of glass in it? People are going to notice that the pretty light at the bottom of the stream isn’t there, even if they don’t know what it is technically.
yeah, gotta agree…Some of us forget that even if a civilian( 
) doesnt understand the technical aspects, visualy they understand when its missing…