I use lightwave as well as Poser and I have never been tempted to transfer and render in Lightwave . The animation tools in Poser are not at all bad once you learn the basics and they provide a hobby user with some nice tools.

The renders I get out of lightwave are horrible.

The walk designer is not a bad way to get a nice walk cycle going , again , if you are using it properly and dont overdo the options. (remember to load the cr2 you are building the walk for ) Tweaking it a bit in the timeline editor will help.  Compare that with doing a biped walk cycle from scratch.  If you want real movement you can always load up a BVH file from a motion capture .

I cant think of any similar priced apps that render much faster than Poser 4 render or firefly for that matter. I have Bryce and Carrara 5.

I think for the money spent Poser gives you some nice tools, a fairly fast learning curve and figures that allow you to make decent pictures with an application out of the box.