I have found messiah’s renderer to be much faster than lightwave’s and have done a bazillion tests to prove it. I don’t own Modo so I can’t do any direct comparisons there but. . . layers don’t even come close to the power of nodes in the creating of great looking materials. . . so I think messiah wins there as well.
I have a very biased opinion. But I know I’m right. 


I know a couple of people that are waiting for any info regarding messiah…