Hi Felix ..

Yes, good tools do not make a good designer. Good designers are born with a sense of proportion that gets honed over a lifetime of experience and, hopefully, some training and critiques by other good designers. If one wants to design furniture it is important to study good examples in depth to get a sense of what is grace and beauty and what is not. The same with buildings or any other art form.

There are many bad examples of both furniture and architecture out there, too. Sometimes designed by well trained and often famous people.

That said, tools are important. When I drew by hand my clients would get one perspective view of their project or maybe only a flat 2D sketch if the project was small. Now they get 3d views from every angle and detailing I could never take the time for in the past. What they see is what they get so when it is built they don't say 'Oh, I didn't know it was going to look like that!'

At the same time, one does not need a multi-thousand dollar program to create good images. Sketchup (even the free version) is good, though I personally don't enjoy using it. MoI is superb for my 3D work and there are a number of free CAD programs that produce good 2D drafting (Draftsight is one that works well).

I was an early user of AutoCad (at one point a firm I was a partner in used 12 stations) and spent thousands of dollars over time. But it got bloated and cumbersome and more and more expensive.

So my advice is keep your tools simple and inexpensive, make them an extension of yourself, and keep them sharp.

cheers,
eric