I'm a member of Quickdraw Animation Society (Calgary Alberta) and we were getting into 3D a couple years ago, and I was invited to participate in the planning stages... like, what package would we buy.  There was the Maya Guys, the Softimage Group, The Lightwave Camp, the 3DS Bunch and myself.  All the parties were boasting on how superior their packages were and why QAS should invest huge gahoolies of cash into their software of choice.  When It came to me I said, "Poser would be a good introductory package to learn basic animation, modeling and such.."  They scoffed, they laughed, they derided Poser until I asked "And how much animation had you done using these packages?"  Only one person had done any animation (please remember that Quickdraw is an animation society)... in Maya and had been working on a short piece for about a year.
QAS went with Maya, I bought P6, installed it on a computer for my own use, and everybody is happy.  I teach Basic Poser to people that want to learn.... the people that wanted the High End packages..... no where to be seen.
but that's just me!