yea I started with xsi for a few months, moved to max and found it really intuitive. And now maya. Personally I think they are all the same thing with the buttons in different places. I don't think I am in a position to judge maya yet as I haven't used it long enough - ask me again in 6 months and I'll let you know 
The thing I liked about max was that, depending on what mode you are in, and then what tool you are using within that mode (say polygon mode, and then in face editing) you have all the tools you need right there in the command panel. In all my time using max I have had to use the menu's maybe twice, and that was to add some hotkeys
I really like maya's navigation though, but it seems to be built around that one perspective window - and when you jump into a 4 viewport mode there is suddenly an awful lack of space (I am running a 21 inch on 1600x1200 btw, max is wonderful at this res).
They are definately different and I predict in a month or two I will love maya, as I learnt to love max, but I don't think I will move over to it exclusively, max just seems to have a much nicer workflow for polygon modeling, but after a week in maya I can't really say that with any authority.
Not to drone on for too long, but maya's uv tools, well I don't like the way it is handled much, it has a couple of nice features like snapping and welding to edges (if this is in max then I haven't found it 
), but aside from that it's too clunky - it's usable no doubt, but it feels very awkward at times.
Now that autodesk owns them both I am hoping they will migrate certain features between the two, I would be really happy if there was a "3ds maya"
