It is indeed impressive how many amazing things you can achieve with something free. I had no idea what Blender can do when I first started, and when I saw the work of some really good artists online, I just couldn't believe it.

And yes, I really enjoyed the process. Since I never used a 3D software before, the interface seemed okay to me, because I couldn't compare it to anything else, and Photoshop wouldn't be a good thing to compare it with. Anything else was just great. I saw some people online complaining about the constant crashes and all kind of bugs, but I never encountered anything like that. Blender just seems like a great software in general.

I'm practicing from time to time, when I'm not working, and while there are things that are yet fairly hard to understand, like texturing in some cases and UV Unwrapping, the final result always motivates me to stick to whatever I'm doing until I'm done :)