This may be a bit off topic, but I think one of the things that Poser has over Maya (or any 3D program for that matter) is the "Poser economy" What other application out there can support multiple marketplaces that provide tons on new and unique content? For whatever reason, Poser is a product that people will pay money for add ons, and in that sense there really isn't anything else like it. From my perspective of being a non animation artist, I find that Poser has the content available to allow me to quickly take the images and concepts in my head and transfer them down to a media to share with others. Which when you think about should be the goal of any art based tool (from the Pencil to Maya). Now don't get me wrong, Poser is not the perfect product by any means, and could use some substancial improvements (faster renders, ability to render many objects, new user interface, etc). But at the end of the day I still find it to be the quickest way to get the job done. Now back on topic, one thing you may want to check out is Carrara. They have a plugin that will read Poser files (with full texture support). Basically you would set up your animation in Poser, save the file, import it into a Carrara scene, add any other effects/props you need, and then render the animation. The only thing I don't like so much about this is that the Carrara renders seem to have a little less detail than the production renders from Poser 5 or Daz Studio. But for animation this may not be an issue.