now i have use worldcraft (for - Half Life, Swat 3) UnrealED 2.0 (for - Unreal Tournment) and Radiant (for - Elite Force, Jedi Knight Jedi Outcast)

no in my oppinion UnrealED is MUCH easyer than radiant and worldcraft..

main advantage of it IMHO is the fact that compiling isnt necercery to test the map in all its glory

when i saw the UT2k3 maps i thought WOW hw detailed are these maps but when i had a look at the UT2k3 maps in UnrealED 3.0 i saw that they are comprised of only models with only very few brushes... wich well IMHO isnt mapping, you could just as well make a huge model and put a couple of entities in it and say its a map.. but its just a model

I think that radiant is more powerfull, i cant wait for DoomIII EF II and QIV to see what they are capable of...

but im sure i could be tempted to go back to UnrealED for games like DeusEx II

as a last note: i thought UT 2k3 was disapointing.. especialy as i loved UT soo much...

Radiant rulez ! ich habe mit dem Unreal Ed das gleiche Problem wie du, das ist kein Leveldesign, das ist nur Modelrumgeschiebe ...

I prefer radiant. I've tried messing in UnrealED, but I didn't like it. As far as I could see, UnrealED is more of a 'sculpting' editor, and Radiant is more af a 'lego' editor. What I mean with this is that in UnrealED you take a block, and start shaping it into something smaller (read: let the editor shape it into something with the click of a button), and in Radiant you build something out of smaller pieces. I prefer the lego method
UnrealED also makes a lot of use of prefab models as you said, and I prefer to do things myself, even if it's more work that way. I think it gives things a personal touch, and it gives you a feeling of accomplishing something.

I've mapped a lot in GTKRadiant, so it would be normal that I would be choosing GTKRadiant. Although I prefer radiant from its ease of use (that is for me, since I am so used to it) I do prefer unreal technology for its possibilities. It is true that leveldesign is done in 3DSmax or maya or another modelling program.

But that does not mean that it is not Level Design. It's just a different way of approaching the way you build your world. It's not because you aren't using brushes that you aren't creating levels. It takes a lot longer (that is if you create custom meshes) to build your world, but the possibilities are endless.

i would guess that the leveldesigner in ut2k3 focused more on the actual gameplay and "ordered" specific assets from the modeler so they worked hand in hand .. its quite different of actualy methods but its still valid leveldesign..

and to come back to the question.. i prefer to map for the q3 engine

I am only experienced with GTKradient and the Q3 engine.  I hope when the next generation of engines come into common use they are as "easy" to map for.

I learned mapping with sofradiant.  then I used WorldCraft for CS maps, and decided I like it better.  So I guess I like Worldcraft/HL engine..  But then I've never learned Q3 yet..

one of these days.