Wow, as always, fantastic replies.  I really appreciate it.  In my searching around, I seem to find more for V4 on my first pass than for V3 and earlier.   However, I like pjz's write-up, so I'll probably buy V3 for now and probably get V4 later.  

It's funny, after having owned Poser for a few years, I'm finally mastering some of the basics and really starting to spend more time with it.   I guess as the saying goes:  In the history of all things that work, there was a time when they didn't.