Just a few cents worth.

When I render complex scenes (using many figures) I find that Poser is a real memory hog when loading the geometry and textures. Try looking at Task Manager when Poser loads things and you will see that resources are pushed very tight when using multiple characters. Remember that most (unhacked) versions of Poser will not be able to address more than 2 GB of memory on Windows and, indeed, I have found Poser can get upset if the memory usage reaches about 1.2 to 1.5 GB. Obviously reducing the texture sizes and having no shadows and creating a P4 style render are all possible solutions to be able to render at all, but who wants to do that? I want maxed out rendering as large as possible with original resolution on the textures, because I'm only going to final render the scene once and then post-work it. You can also use the task manager to see if Poser has bust or is just busy, by looking at the CPU usage. If the CPU usage remains at 0 for a long while then your poser rendering has died.

I have not had much luck with Vue 5 Esprit which also ran out of resources rather quickly. I was using 8 V3 figures.

My favorite render solution, for complex scenes, is the PoseRay + POV-ray solution. I am still learning to use it but, with decently textured figures and quite usable native lights (two infinte lights without shadow and an area light with jittered shadow give a good lighting solution), I think the results are just marginally better than P6. The lack of import of P6's procedural shaders is the only thing I really miss.

I have two recent scenes rendered in POV-Ray, they are:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1332519

(WARNING MILD NUDITY)
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1326359

So, if you get stuck, and no-one else can help you, give the freebie options a try.

Regards,
Jovial.