"... for mechanical or man-made shapes that often manufactured by having pieces cut out of some larger initial stock, the NURBS workflow can produce that stuff really quickly"

Yep - that's how I got my head wrapped around the NURBs method (fortunately MoI was my first & only modeling tool, so I didn't have to un-learn anything.

My background is as a machinist. So I look at modeling exactly as Michael describes. If I want to make something in the shop, I pick a solid chunk of metal that is closest to my final result: Round bar stock for something made on the lathe, a solid block for something made on the mill. CNC tool paths on the machine correspond to trimming with curves in MoI for getting to the basic shape. From that basic foundation you have many other tools available.

Kind of like when I used to carve a bar of soap as a kid (before video games were invented :) Want to carve a rocket ship? Just cut away everything that doesn't look like a rocket ship :)

Ed