No software is cheap, intuitive, easy, and powerful. In 3d software, the most powerful trade-off seems to be between price and WTF-ness of the interface (as in, the less you pay, the more time you will spend scratching your head trying to figure out what the heck the thing is supposed to be doing).
Also, there are sort of two different streams when you are talking modeling for fabrication; the "organic model" stream which ends in 3d prints, and the "CAD" stream which ends in CNC milling -- with 2d and 2d+ CNC like laser cutting being somewhere on the distant edge of that camp, out where Illustrator lives.
So would help a lot to know what kinds of shapes and what kinds of fabrication processes you are thinking.