Yuzuru Jewell, creator of the Rokuro (Lather) and Tokoroten (Extruder) modelers, has created another sculpty tool called Tatara. This new program is a bit of a Swiss army knife, including many tools that let allow you to create sculpties in different ways.
You can use the familiar lathe and extrude tools as well, as some more complicated vertex based modeling modes. There’s an 3-view orthographic mode, one called Wappa that gives you control over the shape of each individual row of vertices, and even a mode that allows you to control ever pixel of the actual sculptmap file by adjusting the RGB values.
Tatara supports all of the sculpty types (plane, sphere, torus, etc), includes a 3D display of the object with texture preview, and also lets you see what your object will look like at the different Levels of Detail in the SL client. The interface may be a bit too technical for some, but Tatara is certainly worth a try. If nothing else it will give you a new look at how sculpted prims are constructed.
It’ costs L$4,500, or you can download a free 3 day trial. You can purchase an object in-world that will give you a serial number to unlock the full version.