One thing Max has going for it is the sheer brutal performance of its viewport. Great for archviz in this regard.
My own experience with Max: It's the 3d software I learned after leaving the Amiga platform behind. From Sculpt/Animate 3d, to Imagine, then C4D (Amiga), Lightwave (Amiga), switch to PC and Max, followed by C4d again, Lightwave, a bit of Max, a very short stint in Softimage, some Modo, then Blender. At work it's a mix of Blender and C4D (with some Modo).
I actually quite liked Max at the time. The current release still has that somewhat clunky feel to it (tried it last year). It is no longer my cup of tea, but a good workhorse. The GUI is indeed no comparison to the likes of C4d. Nor to Blender, in my opinion.