In my opinion, most of the 3D software and renderers are starting to align in their workflows and set up. If you've spent enough time in a 3D package and have your fundamentals down, then a reasonably experienced 3D artist could make something look good in Maya, Blender, Cinema 4D, UE4, 3ds Max, Modo, or slightly more specialized programs like Katana, Mari, Nuke, etc. Most of the "learning curve" is just finding out what a particular program calls one tool or another. I think this video starts to illustrate what I mean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkvRBvKHFek
Also, at studios, you tend to hear about the "main" pipeline where the majority of the work flows through. There are often secondary, smaller pipelines where they evaluate new tools and workflows before committing to entire rewrites. I would agree that small to medium sized studios don't have the resources or luxury to do as much exploration