You will indeed find that such a post can bring out the trolls.
I like Bill's statement that you first look at what your other suppliers and designers use, as that can help a lot in using native files, rather than neutral import solids IGES or others.
If you send out for CNC tube bending, it would be nice to be able to send a native file to your bender.
Since you will want to work with occassional designers, for hot jobs or when you need to add another employee, you would like a 3D package that has enough users in your area to have access to a reasonable supply of users.
There is no doubt SolidWorks is relatively easy to learn the basics, and even learn them on your own with the tutorials and sample parts, and that it is a good stable piece of software, and SolidWorks hasn't "totally revamped" the interface and confuses its customers over the years (not since I've had it since 2000).
Some users will bitch at the latest release and cite a bug, but I doubt there is a piece of software out there without numbers of bugs. Just the world we live in. SolidWorks does seem to get better each year.
Basic FEA stress analysis with built in CosmosWorks is part of the SolidWorks package and that may also be desirable for the analysis of stresses in frames for improving your designs.
SolidWorks has nearly 500,000 seats sold. I do not think I would like to buy something with say 50,000 seats sold and not have as active a base of users and 3rd party application add-ons.
Bo