Expression Tools recently filed for bankruptcy so I guess that answers that question.  It appeared more popular than that to me since there are lots of books about it but I think it was basically only used for hobbiests making 3D idol girls and robots.  If you wanted a job in 3D graphics you had to learn a *real* 3D program   For example I don't know any Japanese 3D school that teach Shade.  They teach Maya, 3D Studio Max, Softimage and XSI.

As for the free stuff.  I don't know if any of the free ones are good or not.  I just know they are free which for some people is the only choice they have.

I'm sure NewTek can list off tons of companies using Lightwave but personally I don't know nor have I heard of a single one.

Lightwave is being backed into a corner because if you've used Lightwave, Max, Maya, Softimage and XSI you know that Lightwave is Lightweight.  Sure you can get some great images out of it but it's missing a ton of major features.  But, what made it appeal to people was that it was $1500 vs $4500 for Max and $8K or more for Maya, SI and XSI.  Last June, Maya and Softimage dropped their prices.  Maya is only $2K now and SI is only $1500.  Kind of removes the reason to by Lightwave.

I wonder if Max will follow the same path.  My impression is having used both Max and Maya that under the hood, at a basic level, Maya is better than Max and in terms of features Maya runs rings around Max. (I'm sure Max users don't want to hear that).  When Max first came out it was priced at $3500, $4500 with Character Studio.  That that time Power Animator, the predecessor to Maya, was like $30K!!!  That was a big incentive to give Max a try.  It was better than any of the cheaper 3D programs but not as expensive as the super highend programms.  Now Maya is less than 50% the price of Max and is arguably better so it will be interesting to see if Discreet, the makers of Max, respond to the price drop.

It will be interesting to see what they come up with.  It seems like they'd have a pretty hard time.  There are so many features in the current 3D tools.  Sure you can make a basic 3D package in a couple of years but adding all the zillion features takes time.  And even if they were able to reproduce it it would have to be better than the current stuff to get people to switch.

I suppose I can think of a few things like if they had some new kind of interface that was clearly, obviously better or they somehow rendered 20 times faster with the same quality.  I don't expect either of those will happen.  Speedups in rendering will most likely happen through new hardware like the newest 3D cards and their pixel shaders.