I would have to say Lightwave is the most user friendly program I have ever used. I can really compaire it to other packages because I have never used any other 3d software for more than 5 minutes without wanting to puke.
One thing you can do is download a free tutorial like Peppers and see it in action as Philip uses it. That will help you get an idea of how LW works. Peppers is a good tutorial to because Philip takes you through modeling and rendering so you will go through modeler and layout.
http://simplylightwave.com/movie_pag...tml?tut_id=512