Yeah, Maxwell Studio can't replace any of the DCC tools ..
Studio is great when you're pairing it with Cad software ... which doesn't have much of a visualisation tools.
It can't .. and, most importantly, not even intends to replace DCC software (i.e. Max, Maya, .. even Cinema
) Maxwell studio is just a hub before rendering .. it's not a creation software .. it's a rendering software.
So yeah - It is a bit sad that there no news on Maya plugin ... as Maya + Maxwell is a killer combo. My dream is to see Maxwell being node based and working together with Maya node system .. oh boy - that would be awesome.
P.S. - thought I'd add this - Altho - these days I'm finding myself more frequent using Maxwell Studio as a stop-over before rendering. I use Maya for primary part of the process, then, when I'm ready to render - I export it to Studio (I wish there were a better plugin for that) and in Studio I do last tweaks (lights, camera settings) - and hit the render button from there .. I'd say last 5% of the process ... and .. well it is not as convenient as rendering straight form Maya, but it has it's benefits.
As discussed previously .. if NL devs want to drop the Maya plugin development (and all other DCC plugins) due it requires a lot of resources with not so much of an outcome (probably due to majority of clients are from industries that don't use Maya or Max) - maybe NL folks could consider creating a "Bridge" plugins - that will hold just a very detailed exporting functionality to prepare and export your scene to Maxwell. Then it would be the Maxwell studio that you're purchasing when working with, say Maya or Max ..