Don't forget that development of P5 could not be done for several years as the licensing issues for various aspects had to be sorted out -- doing so would have cost CL (composed at that time of the folks who created poser) the ability to offer it. Furthermore, they also had to raise capital funds to finance theri efforts -- for two and a half of those years, the main folks all held other jobs and CL was a part time company. Sleeping on it and choosing to ignore it were not what occurred -- those elements cost money to adopt or develop, and there just weren't a whole lot of it around. They gotta make money -- Shade does (not lots, but more), and I'm willing to bet the union of them around what I expect to be P7 will be rather startling. That they finally got to a point where they could release P5 at all is something of a miracle. I do agree, as well, that DAZ will sell items for Poser for a very long time -- the poser community is notorious for ahving a few folks who love to try new stuff, while the vast majority HATE with utter passion the idea of learning to use new stuff. Also, definitely the D|S format will support features that will be absent in P5 (and likely P6) -- it will be taking a differnet tack on the whole thing. I'm waiting on the Beta stage to see how useful D|S will be as an additon to my toolset.

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)