I recently began working on a what I would consider a medium-sized scene using and Silo, Z-Brush, Photoshop, and Carrara Studio. I built and textured everything in the scene, including the male and female characters. It's taken three months to complete it, render it, and do the postwork.
If I spent as much time on a single render using poser I'm sure the results could be as good, or better.