"I'm just finding it much harder to find people that know and answer software related questions"

huh. i am new to this forum (and to poser) but a net veteran, and i've been impressed by how quickly people are answering software (and other) questions here! yes, there are a lot of freebie links, but they just require a little scrolling if i am not interested in the freebie in question -- same as any other short thread for which i have no use.

threads with complaints about some aspect of this site, on the other hand, grow to much greater proportions, and require more scrolling. :)

i find the forum setup itself terribly antiquated and cumbersome for finding specific things -- but as i've just read, that will change soon. i don't know exactly what the new forums will look like, but i strongly suspect that they will solve most of the problem you have with "spam" here (aside: i really dislike it when people misuse terms -- spam is unsolicited BULK mail/posts; the freebie posts are neither). because in all the modern board systems, the comments are not linearly appended as they are here, but you have to click on the subject to get to the discussion. much less scrolling, and easier selectivity for what you choose to read. then folks will probably end up complaining about people picking bad subject lines. wry grin.