I used Maya a few years ago, but just the trial. I learned a little bit about how 3d programs work, but never made anything good with it. It was great and I had a lot of fun messing with it tho, but I haven’t used it in a while.
I love using Blender probably just as much, and I know there are some people who probably dismiss it because it’s free without really putting the time into seeing what all it can do.
What do you think Blender is missing? Anything from small tools to full features or modes, to file types, etc.
This isn’t a question just for people who use other similar programs that can compare one to the other, but anyone who just regularly uses it and often thinks, “Hey, why can’t I do this?” or “I wish there was a tool that ______”
optymalization to viewport/handling such high polygones as have zBrush.
Better Rigging system.
I agree, view port optimization is probably one of the biggest desirable, but thats not necessarily a feature or a tool. Maya has one of the best snapping systems for mesh work, I think Blender is missing that kind of workflow. Modo shows the power of having a work plane, which Blender could certainly use in addition to snapping. This could make Blender one of the best modeling tools out there. A lot of game artist love Maya’s smooth normal feature, and I agree with them. It makes it easy, in other applications there is usually a call for or asking about how to accomplish the same thing. Few offer it, and those that do make it a much harder process than it should be, Blender could use that as well. Nurbs to polygon and vice versa another.
Though if we take away all the desired features and tools, really what I believe blender needs most is polishing and perfecting its existing features first.
What snapping capabilities is Blender missing that Maya has? I checked some videos and didn’t see anything Blender couldn’t do already, but it’s probable that they didn’t go in depth enough. Also isn’t Modo’s workplane pretty much the same as Custom Orientations in Blender?
Being able to edit Vertex Normals would be nice though.
very very many things missing from blender 
blender is nearly unusable
we need new features!
Curves, blender can’t snap to curves, not even other curves can snap to curves. The curve tools addon did add this, but you needed to add snap handlers, then remove them, but it’s not working in 2.6x anyway.
Blender’s snapping is limited, but to understand the power of Maya’s snapping and how the user interacts with a mesh, vert, edge…ect in regards to snapping is something you have to see or better yet try. There are more steps involved and a bit less precision with Blender. There is also the snap to curve and edge with dragging capability, as well as the ease to quickly relocate pivot points for the entire object.
I notice good snapping systems seem to be lacking for most of the 3d software I look into, so its not just a blender issue. Blender is by far not the worst either.
To get a good sense of the work plane check this out, its a bit different from Blenders orientation workflow.
