[TheForge] CAD opinions, anyone?

[A Vida]

I posted this over on artmetal  a couple of days ago and just realized 
that there are about a million geniuses over here, so why not ask.  Some 
of you are there as well, so you can ignore this repetition.  As for the 
rest, if you have any CAD experience you would like to share, please 
know they are welcome.


To wit:

I am about given up on IT as a means of paying bills.  I have decided
to start making parts for reloading presses.  I need to model the
designs.  I have used Rhino, AutoCAD, DesignCAD, and Alibre.  Neither
of these floats my boat very well.  Rhino is not well suited to
machine parts AFAICS  (please correct me if I am wrong) and is
non-parametric.  AutoCAD is still very $$ when all is said and done
and I really disliked the GUI, though that may be have changed in the
years since I last used it - it was not parametric in those days.
DesignCAD doesn't seem to have to hp needed and was non-parametric as
well, but again my version is about 10 years old - much can change in
a decade.  Alibre is a current version and while very good in many
ways, drives me up the wall in others.  I will explain shortly.

What I am looking for is a parametric system (unless anyone can give a
good reason why a non-parametric system would be as good or better,
which I doubt is the case) that is good for machine parts.
Specifically, I need one that will parametrically model features such
as gears, splines (as in shafts, not b-splines though I want those
too), THREADS (!!!!), and seating routines for standard bearings.
These are all very important because I am tired of tearing my hair out
building constructs such as threads by helically revolving a
hand-built profile.  It is a tremendous time consumer and there
is no reason for such standard features not to be available as
built-ins.

Finally, and this is a nice-to-have - macro programming capability
(preferably built-in rather than via an API, which is just such a
PITA) so that if I need to design, say, a new thread form, I will be
able to reuse the method of building in a manner identical (or close
to it) to that for built-in functions.  IOW, I want an extensible
system, if possible.

And of course it must output formats (like DXF) from which a shop will
be able to generate their g-code files.

I have been over in comp.cad and a few other newsgroups and have
asked this question.  For all the tremendous expertise in those
forums, the folks seemed to be too busy to answer the question of
which systems would fulfill my desires.

As for Alibre - a pretty good parametric system in many ways, but of
all things it does not provide male threads, splines, standard gears,
etc.  You have to choose these from an ONLINE library (I'm on dialup
out here :( ) and it is a royal PITA to use.  I would very much like
to get away from all this add-on, twisted path nonsense and find a
system where EVERYTHING you need is right there where you need it and
is network independent.

Anyone have any opinions on such systems?

Know of any good fora for asking such questions?

Thanks much.

    -Andy