Been in that boat, asked the same questions. I wanted that elephant so bad, but I considered it too high priced. BUT in the world of 3d models $30 is CHEAP, I think we get spoilded in the poser market by high quality low priced items that when we see that high sticker price, we gag. Another thing to mention is that if it's higher priced there is a possibility that not a lot of people will have that item and and images that maybe rendered would be a little more interesting becuase there would not be a blethera of images using the same model. just a take on it. Poserworld is SOOO worth it if your looking for clothing items. all the old CDs are online, more and more stuff comes out. best of the club subscription sites I belong to. I just joined Poserstyle so I don't have a take on it yet. I joined for the back archive of quality stuff. I looked around the various market places and there were 6 items at Poserstyle that I would have had to pay a lot of money for, got those items for $5 each buy paying for a membership, and got a TON (92 items) as well. Poserstyle says that the coming months are gunna be really cool and lots of stuff is coming, we'll see. I'm hapy to pay $30 and get 92 useful items. The Daz Platinum club is great though it's a high price for the subscription (I joined when it was $69), their new pricing monthly charge makes it less sticker shock. the quality the variety, and the savings on other daz products makes it very worth it. I've saved over $1200 in this past year. I boils down to how much do you bunget for poser, what are you looking for, and how much is that worth to you. I'd love all the high quality poser animals but for me, paying those prices is out of my league. we all have different limits and needs. Unfortunatly there is little competition between poser sellers. I mean, that the poser animal niche is covered by a great creator of high quality items and not a lot of other people are in that modeling niche. what I think is a horrible model, clothing item etc someone else may think its the best thing in the world. I think it just boils down to the individual and their needs. that's my 2 cents, love to hear what others are thinking. a review site where we could post reviews of products may be a cool idea, though I'd hate to read all the negatives and have someone slammed. Amazon.com has reader reviews. why shouldn't poser.