Just got back from San Antonio, and kudos to Softimage for the impressive new upgrades! I was happy to see, even at a somewhat small and quiet SIGGRAPH conference, that a lot of people were interested in XSI, and packing the users' group until it overflowed and people were turned away. A few years ago I didn't know if Softiamge was going to hold on to enough users to stay in business, but I think I can say with confidence this year that they seem to be regaining popularity with professional users.
I just uploaded my notes and pictures from SIGGRAPH, at
http://3drender.com/updates/sig02/index.htm
(click it if you are interested.)
-jeremy