"You make it sound like people are unhappy simply because it's their nature."

For some people, that is completely true. No matter what CL ever does, no matter what Poser5 ever did they were going to be unhappy ... and be vocal about it.

I did NOT, however, say that was true for all, or even most, of those people with problems.

"it still isn't what was promised"

With few exceptions that impact how I and many others use the product I am not sure what was promised and not delivered. I am willing to learn of any substantial features that are not in the P5 as it stands now. Of course, even if it IS missing a major feature that I don't see, it is STILL a substantial upgrade that is to me and many worth the price.

And that's the bottom line >for me< (and I was always clear on who I was talking about). Poser is for me a tool and not a "cause". As a tool Poser5 is a significant one, and a fantastic upgrade over Poser4 in most of the areas I care about.

• Was Poser5 seriously buggy on release? Yes.
• Are there still bugs in Poser5? Yes, but the don't keep me from working. There are still bugs in Max and Lightwave, I use them anyway as well. No software is ever bug free.
• Are the Poser5 users who are still experiencing problems? Of course there are. And they have legitimate reasons to complain I am sure.

None of that changes that Poser5 as it sits is for me and others stable and a substantial increase in capability from Poser4.

"It's just Poser4/ProPack with third-party plugins stapled onto the interface."

Staples, glue, duct tape... whatever works. Honestly I would have been pretty unhappy to see CL wasting it's time re-inventing the wheel on this stuff.

• It is completely legitimate and reasonable to license a render engine.
• It is completely legitimate and reasonable to license a hair engine.
• It is completely legitimate and reasonable to license a facial morph engine.
• It is completely legitimate and reasonable to license a soft body physics engine.

What possible advantage would there have been for CL to re-create all that code? Life is too short by far. I don't see any serious problems with the integration of the renderer, hair, cloth and face room. Do they work well with models that weren't designed for them? Heck no. However they do a pretty good job given the limits of the Poser model library legacy that they had to deal with.

Hell, 99% of what I do with Max is via "third party plugins" that are basically stapled onto that interface.

"don't ignore serious problems or complaints about their software--they actually try to fix them"

Funny, I have seen serious and continuing work on the part of CL to fix the Poser5 bugs. There have been multiple service releases made widely available that have squashed a serious portion of the bug list. If there are any universal "show stopper" bugs in the current version, please let me know so I can avoid them.... cause I simply don' run into them.

Personally? I think this is a pretty good time for CL to start looking to Poser6. That's probably selfish of course cause Poser5 works fine for me, and I don't see any substantial increases in ability possible till a new version happens.

If someone wants to show me that major "promised" features of Poser5 are either non existent or seriously broken as the software stands now feel free to do so. Of course, I would also like to know what made them think those features were promised in the first place.

I am not speaking for or about "everyone". I am speaking for me and my experience. Poser5 has substantially increased my capabilities and my work efficiency... and that has directly contributed to my ability to handle work for clients and out internal products, more than covering the price.