[roxstar]

I don't know that even your first point holds true, communication and the willing to compromise is what is probably most key.

CAD isn't really going to help you much unless you are planning on building prototypes yourself (even then you would probably end up having to start over if you hired someone else with actual experience.)

If you want to learn a program still, Solidworks is probably the most widely used, the two other big players for 3D are Pro/Engineer Wildfire (though I think they changed what it is called now) and Autodesk Inventor (not quite as used, also lacked major integration with FEA last time I looked).