Hey Blender's all you need; it's certainly all I'm using.
I actually have a 3ds Max bought and paid for (damn you, university art course) but never actually use it, because Blender is so much better.
I know exactly what you mean on the precision front; I actually started out modelling making units for 90s era RTS games like Total Annihilation, with polygon counts you could measure off on your fingers.
The secret to 3D art is that it doesn't actually need to be complex to look good. Look at Wind Waker, or Kenny's free 3D stuff. You can do a heck of a lot just using vertex colours with the meshes to define shape and silhouette. Photorealism is where indie dreams go to die.
