Yeah, that is what I am wondering about? Why is that? It is not that it is wildly different compared to Solidworks. What does Solidworks qualify as a tool for industrial designers? T-Splines is definitely a plus for Inventor. It is just so odd that people rave about Fusion but never mention Inventor. Fusion is a carbon copy of Inventor in many aspects, heck it even uses the same icons and as far as I can tell the same 3D Engine.
So still, if you look for a specifically cheap tool to establish in your company that can also be used for serious engineering work I don’t see how Inventor wouldn’t fill that gap. And if you know how to use Solidworks you can literally learn Inventor in a day.