Hi,
I've been an EIAS user since 1995. I still use it today for visual effects work for TV and some architectural walkthroughs. I also own Carrara (I was an Infini-D user) Hexagon and modo. Used Lightwave for 2 years but went back to EIAS.
EIAS is showing its age, e.g. some parts of the user interface and perhaps not having an extensive character animation toolset as some of its competitors. However, its image quality is still stunning and you can get great looking images and animation quite quickly. On a positive note, there's a lot of development going on behind the scenes on the next version of EIAS (with much input from the user community). If you have any specific questions, please drop by the forum at CGTalk:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=186
There's a lively EI community there.
Aziz.