In this instance, the problem wasn't lack of competency, but lack of staff

While that's a nice sounding excuse, low staff doesn't absolve them of responsibility for a quality product. One could argue endlessly whether it was worthwhile to ship an inferior port rather than not shipping a port at all, but that's not the point. For what it's worth I gladly bought Poser 5 as soon as it became available, and as someone who does this stuff entirely as a hobby with no time pressures at all, I find the preview and editing performance perfectly acceptable. If the renderer is perhaps slower than some others, it's actually not a big deal for me. (Not that faster isn't always better.)
None of that means they shouldn't (or couldn't) have done it right.