FWIW, I went through the exact opposite progression of what you described (Fusion->FreeCAD->OpenSCAD), and I liked OpenSCAD the best. I feel like I've gotten good models out of it, and have done elaborate enough stuff in the process.
I prefer the style of OpenSCAD but I’ve found that there are certain things that the software just is either really hard to achieve or incapable of doing entirely. One recent example is that I was designing a part for injection molding and I needed to add a draft angle to the part. This seemingly simple operation is rather trivial to do in FreeCAD and Fusion 360. It is not at all trivial in OpenSCAD.
Another example of OpenSCAD’s limitations is the render time for parts produced by boolean operations which this change purportedly helps a lot with. But there is also still not a guarantee that the output of those boolean operations is actually a manifold object. Slicers these days are actually quite good at repairing geometry but even with a moderately complex part produced by boolean operations (in my case it was often one that required subtraction of cylinders across multiple pieces of an object) I found OpenSCAD’s output to produce some bizarre issues with geometry that even the slicer could not repair very well.
I too like OpenSCAD the best and often find myself more productive in it than other pieces of software, especially for simple models. But for complex models it can’t really hold up to the more traditional parametric modeling software (yet)
I only experienced issues with OpenSCADs STLs if I used `difference()` with overlapping surfaces (aka when it flickers in the preview). Even then the slicer's repair feature fixed it.
For me the main limitation in OpenSCAD is the UI: distance labels along the XYZ axes are unreadable when they overlap with a surface, transparency only works with one object at a time. Also I'd love highlighted edges in the preview & split view, it would make alignment of parts so much easier.
Still I'm so much more productive in it than e.g. FreeCAD because I have most of what I need memorized and the rest can be looked up on the one-page cheatsheet.
Some tasks are extremely easy in OpenSCAD. Fusion is not that hard either, but it is a commercial tool with a free-ish version where they keep your designs hostage. It doesn't run on Linux which makes life hard for multi platform folks. Also, in past I have had issues with STL generated by Fusion.
OpenSCAD is not perfect though, for example is missing important functions such as alignment and assembly
I've actually had issues with STLs generated with OpenSCAD more than Fusion; to a point where I've had to import the OpenSCAD code into the FreeCAD OpenSCAD module and use FreeCADs STL export to get it working.
99% of the time I don't have to deal with that, but that 1% is pretty annoying.
> One thing Autodesk is truly infamous for industry-wide is being the utter worst when it comes to file formats.
While that is true, the fact remains that there is no industry standard file format for exchanging parametric CAD models.
Everything is proprietary. I.e. if you export in something you can import elsewhere you need to 'bake' parameters into geometry.
This is not a problem Autodesk created.
And while it may be true that it is also not in their best interest to solve it this is not a good excuse to bash them over adding yet another proprietary parametric format to the list for their flavor of such modeler.
It is one of the things asked ("import it into blender"), sort of (yeah of course you have to export in advance using the original software). Mesh export is of course the most basic feature everything can do.
B-rep solid export (STEP) is also very much a thing, you can exchange solid models between Fusion, SOLIDworks, FreeCAD, etc. (and import them from PCB design software and so on)
But this is just baked geometry of course. It's not parametric. There is no standard for parametric models, there is no way to exchange them between different programs.
It's a tricky problem because "parametric" is a very broad term. You'd need to agree on a full set of primitives, parameters and modifiers and further innovation would be tricky without "baking in" or converting to a less parametric form.
Vector drawing software faces a similar problem. There's some agreed primitives but often you just get bezier soup.
> There is no standard for parametric models, there is no way to exchange them between different programs.
This is apologism.
If their parametric export format was documented readable ascii text, there would be an entire ecosystem of 3rd party tool taking care of connecting it to other things.
Even better, if there was a push from them to design a standard for this, this would benefit the entire CAD/CAM/manufacturing industry.
But AutoDesk's mindset is the walled garden / captive audience business model.
The fact that creating open standards around their file format would actually benefit their business is simply something that's completely impossible to understand at the corporate culture level.
There have been licence issues where, IIRC, your subscription ends and you’re not allowed to access your files even to export them. To get access back, you need to renew your subscription.
I suppose there's no accounting for taste.