I've been watching this more intently than I did with the ZB3 update. The way spotlight makes creating almost anything with reference pics easy, means for anything that's not organic i'm probably not going to need photoshop, except for neutralising the light in the picture. If anything it will be a more than adequate way to start off a texture before using ZappLink to touch it up.
ZB3.5 was a decent update which included Zspheres II and lightbox already in it. So far it doesn't feel stable as 3.2 but lightbox is really useful for getting around the models folder anyway. The rigging tools have been updated which makes it easier when retopologizing any models for games.
The last max update I was actually excited for was max 8(I can't remember why). I didn't upgrade from that until 2010 came out. Mainly for the new graphite tools. Max represents functionality to me, where ZBrush represents fun, with the nice side effect of getting decent results. Point being I could probably deal without a max upgrade for a few versions but pixologic are pumping so much good stuff into ZBrush it always reignites that little spark I got when I first started 3d. The problem with max has always been the price, back when I could get work I could easily get my return on the cost of the subscription over a few of months of solid work and sure, it is cheaper to upgrade each year, but I don't see the point in upgrading when i can achieve whatever is set in front of me with the software i have. I'm not going to fork out 6-700 quid on the upgrade just to cut a couple of days of the schedule, in the end its not worth the hassle of struggling for money...
I went off on a little tangent methinks.
I urge anyone to buy ZB. Its stupidly cheap for what it does and i don't think anyone can complain about the free upgrades. If you're serious about getting into games design modelling, I can't list one company off the top of my head that doesn't use it(or a ZB counterpart) as a standard tool.