I must take issue with this notion of "the tools are easier". They're certainly more constrained than in a lot of other platforms, but I really don't think "easier" is an accurate descriptor. In many ways, SL is actually far more complicated than other, more full-featured, 3D modeling programs.
Yes and no. It's simpler, but methods for perfection are often more complex. Simpler tools to get things done, more convoluted ways to get them done 'perfectly'. More on this shortly.
Consider something as simple as creating a Stonehenge-like ring of duplicated objects. To achieve that in SL, you either need to write a script, or else employ any of several convoluted methods of duplicating, undoing, rotating, and duplicating again, over and over and over again until you've got your desired result. But in a "real" modeling program, you could just call up your duplication options box, enter a couple of numbers, click OK, and it's done. What might have taken 20 minutes or more in SL just took you all of 5 seconds in something like Maya. There's just no way anyone in their right mind could call SL's method "easier" for things like that.
Absolutely true. For 'perfectly' placed objects in something like your example, getting it done is certainly harder. However, for things where it isn't an exact number, where things are more to eye than specifically placed, for more organic shapes, and such, it's generally easier, I think. Moving things about is faster, and more immediately viewable in the completed object, since you don't have to render it to see exact shapes. (As you have to do with some shapes and lower display settings of other applications).
Also, exact duplication is easier, as mentioned a while ago with the shift+drag.. if you want something copied exactly along an axis (Local or otherwise) exactly the length of itself, to me it seems easier in SL. With some of the more powerful programs you have to go through a menu to do it, which is just plain silly, I think.
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And don't even get me started on SL's texture mapping controls. They're atrociously underpowered and exceedingly tedious to use. Frankly, it's a miracle anyone has the patience to operate them at all. I haven't counted, but I'd guesstimate that somewhere around half my billable hours on SL projects get eaten up by texture alignment. That's simply ridiculous. I could likely provide at least 25% more unique content for my clients if I didn't have to spend so much time punching numbers into that damned texture tab. Again, hardly the definition of "easier".
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Alignment is harder, but initial application is not, the way I see it. Personally, though I'm quite used to texture alignment..doesn't take me all that long, and sometimes end up with cool effects just by accident that I then like to remember. With evil texturing jobs, like a 10 piece item that each piece needs a different section on it.. I just cut the texture up lol. Takes less time than the larger alignment jobs, is easy, and only costs slightly more. But yes, texture alignment in SL is not an easy thing to just get right off the bat, for certain, while most 3d applications have intuitive controls that will figure stuff out on their own.
Also, in something like Maya, first you assign a material, and then assign various values, and then an image, to get the effect you want. In SL, you just assign a texture, and that's how it comes out. Exactly like the texture. Want it shiny? Dropdown, right there! Transparent? Simple numbers. Glow? Same thing. It's less powerful, but simpler. Just a simple 'select your image' and 'select your colour' menu, while in Maya you have to assign a material and essentially work your way through menus to get what you want, even if you just want that texture, matte, exactly as it was created.
SL has a lot of great things going for it, but the ease of use of its tool set is not one of them, in my opinion.
Still, if someone has been in SL for a while, and then ventures out to try other platforms, I could certainly see how SL could feel "easier" than the adjustment to how things work everywhere else. But for every person in that situation, there's someone else who has lots of experience outside of SL, and then hits a brick wall as soon as they try to model here because none of their favorite tools are present. Those people inevitably spend their first 2-3 weeks complaining left and right about how "silly" and "stupid" and yes "hard to use" SL's tools are.
I think, honestly, that you're being clouded by your experience here. You're used to the big programs, and had to kinda scale back for SL unless I'm incorrect. That would be hard to do, I understand that, for many people. However, if someone were to start in SL, and start in, let's say Maya, at the same time, they would be able to understand the SL tools far quicker than the Maya tools. Maya can do more, but at the same time, that makes it harder to use, because there is so much that it wants to do when you might want to just make a teacup.
By 'wants to do' I mean it makes you go through menus for things that you want done really quickly, and that are fairly simple.
I'll take your stone henge example from above. Let's say you want 4 stone arches arranged at the cardinal directions around a specific point.
In Maya you'd make an arch, then go into a menu for arraying and duplicating and whatnot, input some numbers, and hit 'ok'. While this is seemingly simple, for someone right off the bat that menu might be daunting. It has more information than you need for this simple excercise.
In SL, however, once the initial arch is created, you can create a pole at the point to be the center, link it to the arch, and then just duplicate and rotate, without a menu offering more. Yes, there's still that string of numbers, but there's a label that says 'rotation' and then the axis for rotation, and you don't have to input anything else. Just that is enough, and it will do it.
Different people learn different ways, obviously, and some will prefer the array/duplication menu, and others will just prefer the 'pick a point and rotate around it' method. Personally I like the latter. It's more immediately visually obvious what you're doing, and how it will look.
SL tools are simple, and far, far easier to learn than something like Maya because of that simplicity. If you know Maya, of course, you'll expect things to work one way and find another, but that's another story I think.
ETA:: Oh god, more hijacking
There are about 10,000 different ways to do any one thing, and the paths from start to finish for most of the tasks you've described do not have to be nearly as long winded as the ways you've outlined. All those simple actions and simple parameters you like from SL are there. You just need to know where to look.
