thanks so much for responding.  i've read such conflicting accounts regarding poser 7 performance, i thought it would be good to have a thread just about render power. 

Larry-L - thanks for the link to the pun inspiring thread.

so, let me turn the question around.  would you say that the improvements in rendering ability are good/stable enough to be worth the upgrade on their own?  i'm less asking for reasoning than how stable it is.

does anyone out there have the grim armor by sanctum art and poser 7?    can anyone show me if one (or even more than one) can be rendered in poser 7?  or actually anything that's actually multiple figures and not multiples of one figure?