What about Softimaging Blender? SoftBlender?

[Shenan]

iamvfx, the visual keymap tool you're describing sounds great (I don't remember it in XSI - not sure that I ever used it, or if I have it's been a long time). If it's a clear improvement over what Blender currently has and is presented the right way, I am sure that the Blender community and developers would be thrilled for you to write it.

A good idea might be to start a new thread on the blenderartists forum to describe what you are planning to do, with some clear explanations and screenshots of how it works in Softimage vs. how it works in Blender. I'm sure you will get support, feedback, ideas, tips on the best way to implement it, and alpha/beta testers. Good luck!

[bb3d]

Blender 2.70 is out, with a bunch of nice new features, including some UI improvements:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:R ... Notes/2.70