It's up to 9.6 now with rumors of 10 or Core coming out someday soon.
It does cost a lot less than Max or Maya (<$1000 vs $3000+) although I've seen some interesting deals on Max and Maya.
Indeed, the import/export part is the one that's giving people the most headaches, unfortunately.
It is used in a lot of TV shows though because it's fast and can produce acceptable results in a fraction of the time with a fraction of the people needed for other 3D packages because most LW users are generalists, not because they need, but because it's easy to master more of LW than Max/Maya. And if we go by the old saying "Time is Money" LW saves you twice: it's quick and you need to pay less people to get the job done.
Overall it's a very solid 3D modeling, animation, effects package that, at least for me, is easy to use and full of features. And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if it's Max, LW or notepad as long as it gets the job done. I say: "To each his own."
P.S. BNG Da BZ Fool, that was a refreshing post. Thank you!
P.S. II: It was an interesting period when Max and Maya were throwing punches at eachother as to which is the better, until Autodesk settled the dispute and bought both of them
. New 3D packages have started to emerge again (Rhino, Catia, Modo, Mudbox, ZBrush which was quickly adopted because of it's awesomeness) and it's again becoming a turbulent, yet fun time to be around.
