Well, just thought I'd add my thoughts too.
I've worked pretty deep with torque - TGE actually. I never had any reason to update to TGEA as I had hacked together my own shader framework and eventually merged it with another guy's work and finally released to the public before I left.
TGE's tools are just more than an eyewash, to be honest. There are a number of bugs that need to be circumvented. There is no definite art-pipeline at all. I'm a big fan of blender (in fact its the only modeling tool I can even remotely use) and it has no 'official' exporter. The only DTS exporter available was being developed by a TGE owner at the time.
With T3d, I believe they've gone the Collada way, which is pretty promising IMO.
I was a pretty big fan of TGE, given the fact that I had the source code to a really big engine, and decent (though half baked) reference documentation. But then, it seems to me (personally) that GG is more interested in continuously making profits out of their engines. TGEA soon made TGE obsolete, and T3D is well on its way to burying it. I personally, didnt like that. For a company that desires to cater to the independent developer, you'd atleast have a mention of TGE on your website (which they dont anymore). Granted, its based on technology thats 3 years old, but for someone who bought it just over a year ago (when TGEA, their then flagship product, was still a little unstable and didnt support OpenGL), this comes as a killer blow.
That was what put me off a little bit. But then, mileage may wary, and to answer the OP's question - well, please rephrase it.
As everyone else here has said, you're comparing... lets say... Apples to orangutans? Or maybe something a little more mellowed down