Hi Chipp, well what's "niche" for one person or industry is pretty different than others. For example people doing waste piping design for nuclear power plants also use 3D graphics yet they have no use for any of the revolutions that are familiar to you... But yes the thing is that different technology bases tend to have a different set of strengths and weaknesses for different kinds of models. Managing a high level of detail like you'd see on realistic character models is where sub-d can get more difficult and where the sculpting/brush-based displacement type approach (like ZBrush, 3D Coat, Mudbox) just manages that type of thing more easily. You can do it in sub-d too but it seems to require a higher level of skill and planning and so a longer investment of time to develop that.

Shapes that are kind of organic in form but don't have small localized bumpy details like car bodies for example seem to be a natural fit for sub-d still though, the super localized detail that brush stroke displacement gives isn't useful for that kind of thing when you don't want any little bumps.

Then if your shape can be defined well by 2D profile curves, that's where NURBS modeling is strong, a lot of man made manufactured parts fit into this category, it's why manufacturing oriented use of 3D graphics has always been based on NURBS and didn't make any use of sub-d during the visual fx revolution era either.

But anyway the best toolset varies an awful lot depending on what specific industry you're in and even what particular kinds of models you happen to be doing as well. As far as I know there isn't any one single tool that spans everything.

- Michael