That's a blast from the past, you're completely right about the cost for Maya and that's why I use Blender as well, the fact is that Blender does pretty much everything that Maya does, it's free and open source too. If I ever made a crap ton of money from my work I'd be happy to sponsor them. It's also worth pointing out that a lot of the 'traditional' 3D and 2D software for professionals out there now operate on a subscription DRM infested model. For 2D I've ended up using mainly Krita for my work and occasionally GIMP but that's for generating normal maps if I ever need them, I think Krita offers more support for that now though.