Hey Ben,
I came across this thread and really appreciate your response. I'm in the process of trying to select a software to learn and learn well. Nothing worse than knowing a few bits of lots of software. As we all know, good images can be achieved many different ways and there is a skill and practice involve no matter what programs you're using.
I use Sketchup for 100% of my modeling. Although I'm learning Revit in my job, I can't see it as a good free modeling software and don't plan on using it that way. If I ever look into a different modeling program, I'd like to learn Rhino because of it's powerful manipulation with geometry. But right now I don't have time to try and bring that up to the speed I have with Sketchup.
For rendering, I've been trying to learn Lumion as I believe it has the most all around capabilities that I need. Lately though, I've come across a few things that it lacks that I can get out of Vray for Sketchup. Parallel projection being a big one, the rest I think I can manage once I learn Lumion better.
I also have the beta version of Unreal Studio and desperately wish I had time to learn that, as I believe that is definitely going to be a big player in the arch viz industry soon. But again, I don't want to spread myself too thin and need to be able to produce work and improve.
I saw that you posted this 4 weeks ago, any additional thoughts on this topic since then?