The new lighting options in Carrara 8 are very potent. Skylight and indirect lighting can give you some great soft shadows without having to resort to postwork. I think what makes Carrara a standout is that your work flow is vastly streamlinged. Maya gets a lot of attention for its eco system but Carrara can go toe to toe with it using Replicate.
The hair system in Carrara absolutely rocks! I don't think I will ever go back to polygon hair.
I will say that if you get too enthusiastic in the render settings that even a good system (i7 980 6-core, 12GB 1333Mhz ram, ATI FirePro v8800 2GB video card) will bog down! Right now I am researching setting a 20-40 node render farm to let me really go nuts!!!

IMO...an assault cannon with burst fire and a 90-rnd drum is PLENTY of firepower. When I was thinking about this cannon the 30mm ASP cannon was firmly in mind. The lightest vehicle that I have seen one mounted on was a Landrover...which looked absolutely sick!