Sorry, but I think Max is the best option. I find that it can be overkill, but only if you choose it to be.
What I like best about Max is the fact that it is quite easy to NOT overcomplicate things. You can go true photorealism with it, obviously, as the brochures represent. You can also stay fairly presentational... It's all in your control. If you don't want to mess around with setting multiple layers of specular maps or scatter method crap on your diffuse refractions... blah blah... don't use it, and you'll end up with a great product anyways.
I find the flexibility and near limitless ceiling that Max seems to provide to be the best thing. The price tag however... is the worst thing. Obviously, though, if it's the company, it's probably easy to win the salesman over with some "ohhhh shiny" pictures, and then they can convince the higher ups to buy it.
I've seen others and they do good stuff... like Accurender. However, I find that the people who get it to do great stuff, are often at the ceiling of the software's capabilities and flexibilities. No room to grow. Max, I think, is where it's at.
Couple that with it's incredibly easy and fluid transition of an Autocad model to 3dsmax, and you got a great marriage, there.
Max also has it's popularity working for it. I say that because there are tons of tutorials, guides, walkthroughs, resources, etc etc etc out there already.
Sorry I can't offer alternatives... I find Max to be the best choice, despite the price.