Fundamentally, Maxscript should allow you to do most things (tool based). You can access the infrastructure at the top and SDK levels (though this is more c++). Some people still use Dot Net and maxscript, some use it in conjunction with C#. I guess it will come down to ui complexity as it seems that this is the area in which higher level functionality is wanted and which maxscripts ui toolset is inferior. Additional interfaces exposed (Vray and other non max standard installed additions) will be accessible, but while maxscript is very useful, it cannot comapare to utilising Python or others to enhance it, but python leverages (wraps) maxscript, so at some level, possibly a speed issue, but for what you will learn to start with, it should not pose much of an issue. Start with Maxscript.
