> It has rendered Maya nearly obsolete.

really? I haven't done 3D rendering in a long time, admittedly, but back then Maya and Lightwave were miles ahead of Blender. Rhino3D too. Even 3DSMax was better. Lightwave seems to have sadly fallen off (unfortunately, IMO it was the best at one point, had excellent ray tracing). I didn't really Blender had come such a long way -- that's great.

Since you mention niches: Adobe InDesign has no OSS competition at all, and Illustrator is still much better than Inkscape.