Looks like Art of Illusion has just released their newest version {1.5}. I have yet to try this on my new computer {and the old computer simply won’t run it for slowness}, but it looks pretty interesting… a free competitor to blender I wonder? Nah… 
Yeah, I the shaders in AoI are simply wicked - the editor is very, very powerful and it’s got every procedural you could dream of. And those new features look pretty alluring (GI and photon mapping). The only problem I have with it is (being in Java) it’s kind of sluggish.
The sluggishness I can handle. It’s those damn triangles…
Oh, and wings-0.98.10a is out.
Hmmmm…looks like the only important features that were added were the photon mapping (for caustics and GI) and the camera filters. The rest was just bug fixes.
I don’t think AoI is a competitor to Blender. 
But at least it has the raytracing/GI thingies. 