I do a ton of animation, when your characture is talking durring an animation. After you have used Mimic and you want to change the expression. using an expression durring that speach, Problems arise. My experience is that the mouth wants to hang on with that expression untill the next new expression is entered. Thus when talking ,the mouth doesn't want to close correctly or can close to far the other way. I have to edit the mouth in the keyframes to get them ballanced for the rest of the animation. 

The perfect MiMic or Talk Designer is that you can activate the expression you want, (not just brows up and brows down) all your detailed expressions right through those programs. And if you need to correct or tweek them you run them back through the Mimic or Talk Designer Program.

As far as Sydney being a girl or guy. Hey I was studying the detail of the facial movements of the new charactures, at 4 am getting sleep was a priority, but I had to check out the new features in Poser.  wether the characture was a guy or girl was the least of my concerns.  I wanted first and formost to analize head movements and expressions.

One thing I am sure of. If the Talk Designer comes up a little short at this point. EF will make sure it will meet the standards that it's customers want. I like the fact that you access it within Poser. Reguardlessly. I will buy Poser 7. I think they do a bag up job over all.