1. All those other apps are toys when it comes to shaders. Almost all those ridiculous snobs use UV mapped texture images, most of which are either photos they downloaded (didn't even photograph themselves), or they are seamless tiles they downloaded. Almost none of them bother making procedural textures like I do, from scratch, using only math. Even if they wanted to, those toy apps they use can't do full blown procedural shaders, like Poser.

There are lightwavers who make shaders.  And,  now, with the nodes, we're all getting real math conscious.  Also, lots of folks use zbrush for texturing these days.  And, why is using downloaded texture images/photos worse than using a whole premade model with textures and all the rest?  I'm not getting that.

I like making my own stuff.  I have for years.  Unless you try it, you can't claim to know the satisfaction in it.