Well, the problem I have with Poser is it's not really good at the one thing it exists to do.  I have never had half of the problems with Poser 7 other people seem to.  I've had it Poof away a few times, and it hangs and freezes on some operations, but my biggest headache has always been it's inability to find associated textures on its own if something gets moved or saved in a different format.  Maybe because I'm not using those high-end 3rd party figures everyone else seems to be that P7's always worked so well for me.  So, no, I don't think P7 is a bad program, especially not for its price...

HOWEVER, for a program called Poser and pitched as a character specific tool, there are some glaring deficiencies I've never been able to get my head around.  Horrible rigging tools, hugely inadequate joint bending system with no weight mapping, no soft bodies (even something basic like "Jiggles" could be part of the program but isn't), and of course problematic self-shadowing that misses entire features such as nostrils.  All of the animation tools in the world would be wasted on figures that only look (halfway) real while sitting still.

I'm not giving up on Poser just yet.  That said, Carrara6 looks too good to pass up.