Umm ... saying that you have to buy every single D|S plugin to calculate D|S's cost isn't fair unless you do that for Poser as well.

Olivier's ART MATERIALS Vol.1 : Cartoon Shaders - $45
Olivier's Art Materials Vol.2: Dry Shaders - $45
BodyStudio C4D Plugin - $179
BodyStudio 3DS Max Plugin - $179
BodyStudio Maya Plugin - $179
Kuroyume0161's interPoser Pro for C4D R9.1 Full - $122

Hmm ... Now Poser is $898 ($719 if you don't get the BodyStudio C4D plugin since you have Kuroyume0161's C4D plugin) and that's with only a few of the Poser plugins out there. 

Should I toss in Virtual Fashion, Poser Physics, Wardrobe Wizard, Clothing Converter, etc.?  That puts Poser well over $1000.

I'm not saying that D|S has all the features of Poser, but if you're going to put in pwShader as a D|S cost then you should put in Olivier's Shaders as a Poser cost because they're roughly equivalent in functionality - both add to the render effects of their respective programs.  If you're going to include the FBX importer (which Poser doesn't have) as a manditory D|S cost then you should put in at least one 3rd party importer as a manditory Poser cost. 

Some people don't have any need for any of the D|S plugins.  The free base does just what they want.  Their cost is $0.  Others need plugins, so their cost is more than $0 but not necessarily $270.  On the opposite side, some people don't need all the stuff in Poser but they still pay the same as those who use all the features.  I use only 2 of the 7 rooms.  I sure didn't pay $42 (2/7th of $149) for my version of Poser.  I'm not griping about it, just pointing out that it's a matter of perspective.

That's my 2 cents on the matter,

Cres