Well, thets probably what they say but i would not think its the entire truuth. XSI is a bit cheaper than maya thats all. Maya interface is better in my oppinion its just looks older (better looking interface wont make it better, i mean a lot fo skins out there look cool but only about 10% of them are realy usable)
Thet said if they are working on a new inetrface look then alias will have had started the process allready, if not then they wont. Since its by no means a trivial task to do considering how mayas ui is built, since you need to be able to replicate the same thing on mac, and linux and it must be accessible to mel like the old interface (lets face it the inetrface is mel). Wich means a lot of things would need to change.
Also note teht big studios have cutsom maya interfaces so, they too would need to convert or then the widgets need to change in a smart way...
And yes what guys with xsi gain in candy they certainly loose in many other aspects to maya, aspects taht are faar more usefull than the candy in day to day operation of things. on the otherhand XSI si better t certain tasks than maya, and certainly XSI makes more sense at first, maya jsut makes snese more after you realy look at what under the hood, wich is what you realy want at the end of yoru day.