I recently bought a 2001 Maxima with 45000 miles on it. The car checked out fine at the mechanic, but the first time I started it up in my garage at home, there was a fairly strong smell of oil. I know this can be expected of a car with a lot of distance on it, but my Sentra with 50k has no such smell at all.

Is this normal for the VQ30, or does my engine have significantly more wear than it should for the distance?

All it takes are a few missed 90 day oil changes to increase ring wear. Measuring running and static compression should tell you what's going on.