Considering the breadth of 'commercial' artwork I've seen they looked acceptable to me. I found them interesting and they looked useful. At least they didn't look like a P4 render. Your idea of using them for the character but placing it over a conventional render of the scene sounds interesting. They may even be interesting to composite over a conventional render of the actual character. I didn't get it at the time because I didn't have (and still don't have) P6. We'll see what the rumored P7 brings to the table when (if????) it's announced. I really hope it's got some things that'll make it worthwhile to use for my animations rather than the PPP/Lightwave 6.5 combination I'm using now. I'd much prefer to be working in Mac OSX and using multiple-processors. (Note: this is just an expression of my personal opinion and not and indictment on yours at all.)

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/