"Uh, no, not really. It may need a little adjustment to meet its full potential, but I can only think of a very few things that outright "suck". "

Obviously this is a matter of opinion... I tend to be rather harsh in my evaluations. If I was purely a hobbyist my feelings might be different but I doubt it.

"But I can go into the RMP and find a couple of dozen for-pay pieces that seriously suck. Not because I might have to pay for them, but because someone somewhere actually thought people would spend money on them."

Oh I agree entirely. It constantly amazes me what I see in most product previews... in particular for clothing. Most of it looks like it is 1mm thick because no one made an edge to the seaming and it almost never fits right even in the promotional renders.

"A more innocent time? Could be. But certainly one where you didn't see catfights over textures and almost monthly threats of lawsuits over copyright violations."

Maybe - when there is nothing to lose I suppose it isn't worth the trouble. That isn't the same thing as "innocent" you know... from my memory of the histories of this and many other sites there was a share of turbulence and flamage.

This is true of the "good old days" in 3D graphics - long before Poser existed at all. It is true of the "good old days" in UUNET (pre web) and the old BBS days of shareware. Everyone remembers it as being idyllic... and it never was.

People don't change.

"Oh and Soulhuntre... for that 99.9% of Free Stuff sucks remark... Thanks a lot. Remind me of that if you should EVER request anything, and I WON'T make it for you."

Ok. I'll make a note of it - if I forget and accidentally do ask you specifically to build me something feel free to remind me. It never ceases to amaze me how people can take this stuff so personally.

"Does anyone else agree? I seriously wonder."

I agree entirely that the market is getting very interesting. Of course it will no longer support the large number of merchants it did a while ago pumping out almost anything that crossed their mind to an audience that bought almost literally anything. This is not, IMHO, bad news.

Prices are coming down... quality is going up. The market is doing what markets do in finding a natural balance between supply and demand. The most talented vendors will survive and the many others will succeed but not be full time at this. Just like every other market shake out there ever was.

Other things are happening though that will lead us to another big explosion in 2004 I think. It will be interesting to watch.

"I do think there may be some kind of shakeup or market consolidation coming. Probably with DAZ as the major commercial player left standing, and maybe a few hobbyist sites left, where the "stores" are more a way to pay for bandwidth than actual income generators."

I think there will be more than that - I am thinking there will be three major markets in a little while, and maybe 5 or so second level stores and a number of good individual merchant sites.

"Maya & Kozaboro free Hairs are top of the line, the Maya Doll is awful cute, Dark Whisper's Sara is pretty spiffy, and Wenkes hair textures & hair fits are seriously useful. Right up there with Snowsultan's guides and Trekkiegrrls unusual freebies"

Of course they are. There are others too we could name obviously. Traveler puts out good free stuff I use and Questor did some awesome guns I love. The list goes on and on. However if you look at the thousands and thousands of freebies available you realize how rare those people are.

That's just the nature of these things though - it isn't a flaw or a condemnation. It has always been that way in every community where things are traded that are free (and most markets). Most of the free quilting patterns my ex wife got and traded for free a long time ago sucked too :)