@spiralstair don't forget you're also a coder. so your brain is apparently made for houdini ;) average brain sized artists like us have a much harder time wrapping our heads around an app like this.
i think @nerv didn't say it's just for vfx, he said he uses it just for very special vfx tasks, because for everything else he's way more comfortable in c4d and thus can produce faster. most people i know about use it that way, as an addition to fill the gaps their app of choice can't deliver.
i'm very impressed with houdini and i think it could become a serious thread to all the other apps out there, well in fact it already puts them under a lot of pressure. but they can add as many fancy features as they want, as long as they don't make it a little bit more straight forward to operate the majority of CG artists will use other apps like maya max modo and c4d.