It’s not a mystery that blender fbx isn’t perfect, and i’m not sure yet ( not tested on my end, no time right now) but I read yesterday that for ue4 I guess there is a new ‘scene’ export for blender maya, max . Again , not tested by me, but that might serve you if in fact you ever decided to revisit blender.
I was terribly lost when I started with blender ages ago, but it does have some advantages as in workflow . I don’t need to choose a face/vertex/edge’ to rotate around just that areas, where in blender its automatic depending on your settings in prefs, rotate around scene or local, and I have no idea if maya has that as the little time I"ve spent with it due to finances atm, is slim really.
I had trouble in max too on my current , failry complex 1.3mil tri mesh, but then I don’t have a power rig with a brand new gtx 980 ( dual or not) &/or a i7 speedster, but what I have has been more than enough , easily, to do whatever I want in meshmixer.
Autodesk through meshmixer, admittedly a app that is providing them good testing feedback I"m sure for 3d printing etal, is a god send here for us, as while atm I’m not doing a ton of ‘edit’ work, what meshmixer provides ‘can’ do else work rather well, but currently I’m doing tons of sculpting.
Try out meshmixer , you might change your mind about 3d apps. Its not meant as a ‘editing’ app pe se as its primary focus is yes, 3d printing, but it has a lot of cool features that are handy not just for that purpose.
IF I had the funds, I"d lean to autodesk maya, but not rule out in the slighest, max.
From what I"ve heard, max strength is game dev, maya more movies but maya can do just about anything from what I"ve seen.
Max takes a lot longer to load which I didn’t enjoy.
AS noted, when and IF blender fixes sculpting brush ( atm it does not ‘conform’ to topology, whereas meshmixer does and I want that ) & edit mode which is unuseable for me, it might well be enough for daily use, but I"m not holding my breath .
Blender can use subdivision which would likely help edit performance, but I didn’t start my app there, so I can’t use it so I"m still stuck with unuseable features.
I think one further thing needs said: I have cinema4d installed too, and while its no longer able to export, it doesn’t stop you from using it, just places itself in demo mode. You can’t save, but at least you are still able to try the app out, which is a plus if you are even slightly interested but not committed.
I get the bit rot thing though, thats a easy decision, assuming of course one can afford such apps, I can’t ( many can’t).