Quote - isaying it's better just to start with 3d is about on par with saying you shouldn't plan out furniture or a house because it won't be the same as the sketch and you can always just move that piece of wood where you want it.  

 

Starting out with something is always a good idea. What I object against is the idea that this something should always be a sketch on paper. I prefer to sketch in 3D, in Poser itself. I often do outdoor scenes, so I start out with a ground object and shape that more or less to my liking. Untextured. After that I add key environment elements (usually one or two trees that the people interact with. Possibly some rocks). Then I add the people, untextured, no hair, no clothes, no morphs, using canned poses to give me a start. I often use the P4 people as proxies to keep the scene relatively low poly.
Then I look for a good camera angle, adjusting the people and oten the key environment props, until I have a composition I like.
Only then I replace the proxies with hires figures, fine tune poses, work on expressions, add clothes, hair and props. Bogging down Poser with hires figures and maps at an early stage only slows down the workflow, it's something I do last.
Since I almost never render in Poser itself, I don't set up lighting in Poser. That I do in Vue 6 Infinite, which I also use to add non-key environment elements. But If I plan to render in Poser itself, I test the lighting with textured low-poly figures, rendering at low quality and at half size.

The only real difference in workflow is the tool to make the sketch. Some prefer paper and pencil, others prefer Poser itself. But I completely agree that working without a plan cannot result in a truly great image.

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

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