Hello every body. Heres my personal point of view.
There is no number that can match the reality of most renderings with maxwell, i say most because there are some renderings that are bad, yes bad and some of you have to admit it.
There are a lot of extremely talented people here that have above average skills for making true to life renderings with maxwell. But for people like me that have not been in the CGI world that long, maxwell realy is the best way to go, really a few clicks and there you have a nice looking render, a litttle more clicks and you will have a true to life simulation.
Easy, well once you have a basic training on professional photography or a notion of how a pro camera works, then yes its easy.
We all have to wait until the final release to see its true magic with real simulation of environments and weather conditions, true to life material simulations and the best true to life light analysis and interpretation.
I feel blessed owning Maxwell and some how secure, really secure knowing that my future as an architect has an advantage over other people to make a real study of light and therefor a optimum design solution for my clients.
I feel that making a statement over a software that is in alpha stage assuming that it is the final release is a misunderstanding. MaxwellRender only promises a brigther future for all of us, hope its a faster future too.
One question, will you like living in the Matrix or in Maxwell??? witch one is more real???