I bought Poser 5 when it first came out, waded through all the issues and bugs. The latest SR4 is fairly stable and really made Poser 5 much better. That being said. My 1st exposure was to Poser 4 from a friend no propack just vanilla Poser 4. I got Poser 5 and was overwelmed. I am still having issues with the material room and nodes and settings. I recently got Poser 4 and ProPack and I must say that as far as ease of use Poser 4 has been much more of a tool for me, I still have Poser 5 installed and I still try things in it, but Poser 4 works and I can follow tutorials etc. It's been much more pleasurable for me, other dunno, like I said that's my experience yours may differ. If you own Poser 4, I would certainly get used to it, ProPack can help with some of the old Poser 4 issues but unless you really need the plugins for either max or lightwave you don't then need propack nessisarly as a beginner.