A day late and a dollar short.

I started using Poser 3 in 1998 and I'm currently learning Maya. As mentioned Poser is good for what it does but has obvious shortcomings, as observed by the several complaints listed in the forum daily. I am constantly amazed by what Maya can do and I also enjoy the "instant gratification" that Poser offers. Both Poser and Maya are nothing more than tools, and I believe that an expert Poser user with time can be come a formidable Maya artist.

Everyone talks about the big apps that studios use but why do they use them? I believe this is the key to understanding the "snobbery" you experienced during your interview.

The reason why studios use Maya is because no other package is as extensible as Maya (perhaps SoftImage is but I've never used it so I can't say). If Maya doesn't have a function that you need, you can create it. Maya can be stripped down to its kernel and reconstructed to be as specialized as you need it to be. My Maya and John Doe's Maya may have come from the same place but are completely different, customized apps due to our workflow issues. And of course Maya, using Mental Ray (which some consider to be the world's most physically accurate render engine) or Renderman (production proven for several Hollywood films) can render millions of polygons, which sadly, Poser / Firefly cannot touch. Two fully clothed and hair-ed V3s will crash Poser like a drunk driver.

I'm really sorry that you've been offended by the "high-enders" but I think their snobbery is somewhat justified.