I was in a similar situation and had to beg for Rhino about 8 years ago to cut down on drafting time (can auto generate views, albeit you might have to clean them up and reconnect lines sometimes) and to use photo real views to communicate with factories . I had a hard time learning it and still am always learning it but I am probably older than you and come from a time when we did not learn on computers in school and had to learn AutoCAD 12 and Adobe and windows programs on my first job and at night on my own.
I have found from reading that the program can model anything, its just the user that is the limitation and time.
I’ve found that obviously, not all 3D forms are created with the same ease and Rhino is very specific about how you close off shapes to make them a watertight solid, also their boolean tools are very finnickey (they don’t like coincident planes and borders). At my level, I am very careful what I try to model. For example I would not be able to model a realistic, muscle-bound superhero with a cape - do you use something like Z-Brush for that?. I am not sure what is best for that sort of stuff. But all in all for product-like shapes, the program makes me look good, but I’ve had to put a lot of time and $1200 into two training courses and constant referencing manuals to get there. If your dept. is budget concious, use rhino, it is the highest performance, lowest cost equation. To date there are now maintenance, subscription fees, buy it once, upgrade when you want. It’s Flamingo renderer is good, but for another $250. got better with FlamingoNXT. One of the bigger disappointments for me was their was no shelling command, but in 5.0 they have this - it is beta now. THere are also a lot of plug-in now too to do stress analysis and it seems someone is always coming out with plugins.
I am in the same boat, what I really want to use Solidworks because most of the jobs I see require it over Rhino but I can’t afford it and the learning curve I hear is steep. I think you concern is valid where you think your employer may balk if your not productive with SW after spending so much on it, unless you can sell it to them where your sent for training and explain it is powerful but commands a bit of training.