I love the idea of Quixel but my god… it still crashes constantly and is highly unstable no matter the updates they bring out. The whole integration with Photoshop is a nightmare usability and performance wise. 3DO is great and you can get results quickly but there hasn’t been a single project where it hasn’t crashed.
For handpainted meshes 3DCoat all the way btw! For more realistic PBR materials I would go with Painter/Designer. The whole industry seems to be steering into the procedurally created workflow and Designer/painter fits into that perfectly. Now is the best time to learn it 