If you want my personal opinion on I-DEAS. It's decent high end modelor, with good FEA tools. The drafting package is bad, I can't tell you how many times I've had to redo a drawing because I changed one little thing in the model, and the drawing would refuse to update, or would refuse to update with any dimensions. There is basically no "undo" command. It only works for one step, so if you refresh your view, thats your one step. I-deas is not stable. It will often just do something it doesn't like and then disapear. The sheet metal tools are bad. You can not modify your parts in the flat and then refold them. A must for sheet metal parts. Often times you can not add any thickness to the parts after making them sheet metal. Not a singal sheet metal part I have ever looked at from Ford has had a thickness. My experience would be to tell you to go buy SolidWorks, as it's inexpensive, compared to I-Deas, Easy to learn, and powerfull enough to handle anything I've ever done.
Will