Most of what makes Poser look so artificial is in the lighting people use, followed by the texture, followed by rendering in Poser rather than something with a more advanced rendering engine. In that order of importance.

You corrected for the first two by going for black and white in the photoshop. The second one can be mosty overcome with the right settings on Poser, and again the photoshop work. A higher end app just removes the degree of postwork needed - and makes poorer lighting or poorer texturing less 'problematic' than it is in Poser (as in, good lights and good texture will get you far in Poser and in Vue or Lightwave, but poor lighting and poor texture will show up more in Poser than in Vue or Lightwave or whatever).

Morphing is of course important, but lighting is more so in my opinion. Good lighting can make even a toon render look 'photo real' - with the obvious caveat that the shape of the object will jar on the viewer. But good lighting can, in my opinion, take a 'borderline morph' of Aiko and make her seem a lot more realistic - whereas 'typical' Poser lighting will have the opposite effect, making her more plastic and cartoony.

Truth has no value without backing by unfounded belief.
Renderosity Gallery