I don't know about your second question, but I can chime in and give my view on your first. I am pretty new to Poser myself (bought Poser 5 in the spring of 2004 but didn't really get into it until October 2004). When Poser 6 came out I had only learned how to dress a figure and do a render 4 months prior so I didn't feel a need to upgrade to another version of the same program. Over the months I've seen the odd post about a feature in Poser 6 that I felt I would like to have access to, but it wasn't enough to get me to spend more money on the same program for a few more bells and whistles that weren't really a necessity IMHO. In December that changed. I saw a post about using the Morphing Fantasy Dress in the cloth room. I tried to do that using Poser 5 but it wasn't working. Someone suggested editing a file prior to rendering, again that didn't work. I really love dynamic clothing, but I also love the MFD but have always hated the way the skirt always looked "posed". The fact that the Poser 6 cloth room would allow me to have the best of both worlds sold me and I upgraded at the end of December. The cons: - most premade light sets that I grew comfortable using in Poser 5, previewed nearly black in Poser 6. Apparently if there are more than 8 lights in a scene Poser 6 doesn't like that and won't preview them, but the light will render fine. The Pros: - IBL Lighting. I love being able to take any image and use it to light my scene. - You need less lights to light a scene which speeds up render time - Area render - No need to edit an .xml file to increase number of thumbnails viewed - Cache of previous renders - Gather Node that allows you to do some really cool neon glowing effects. See these links: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2217752 http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=2505946 http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2222447 - Being able to save render option presets. I'm sure I've missed some pluses. But I see very few cons and would recommend upgrading if you can afford to.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi