Quote - Not to start any flames but the single P4 image looks far more "photo-realistic" to me than the P6 figure which betrays all sorts of "hyper-realistic" CG conceits. Throw some film grain on the first image, touch up the HVS and I might believe it was a photo, throw some canvas or paint texture on it and I might believe it was a painting...

well, then that's you, and you're certainly entitled to your opinion. i'm far from offended. but  i postworked the hell out of all of those P4 images multiple times.  nothing good (as in anything i was willing to show- i threw them all out) came of any of them except the last one, and that was almost completely covered and still really obviously CG.   the only good thing about it, imho, is the pose.

i haven't touched either of P6 images.  the second is pure test image, so that goes without saying.  and the previous i lost before rendering it large enough to be worth postworking. but, again, imho, still worlds better light than the one before it.  i wasn't trying to show it as perfect, and as i mentioned i never use AO on my lights anymore.  the point is that, arguably and imho, it's better than anything i did in P4 and it took 1 hour to do.  the others took ages, got severely changed in Photoshop and still largely looked like butt.

i don't think i have any P6 renders i couldn't do anything with.  i have about 10 or so P4 renders that were beyond anything i could work with.  and that doesn't include my first/beginner works.

i can tell you, while you may not like my P6 stuff better, i get _ a lot_  more praise for it. Sean actually spent time critiquing one of my P4 works long ago on PoserPros, and even after weeks of postwork and trying to improve it, he didn't have much good to say.  i can't remember anything good, actually, but that could just be my own bias towards remembering criticism more clearly than praise.   and he was the only one commenting.  i've gotten more praise for my weakest P6 or D|S work.   and frankly, the response was so terrible and criticisms so wholesale, it was so difficult to achieve anything satisfactory after hours and hours of work, i just gave up on any 3d work for a few years.

as for conceits... really, there are none. lights just do have inverse square falloff, light just does bounce off the environment and color stuff, and skin just does have SSS.  nostrils just don't glow or show pitch black regardless of lighting.   there just is shadowing between lips.  you can say my skin shader isn't any good (and i know i could improve on it), but frankly, the rest of it isn't conceit, it's just getting closer to how things work.  and since, personally, i'm interested in light, shadow, form and color, i really prefer all the advances that more properly model how light works and interacts with materials.  i'm not asking for you to like it, not by a long shot.  but trying to say the P4 stuff is more versatile or more realistic.... all i can say is that you're in the minority, as far as any of the feedback i've gotten.  and you must be ignoring a hell of a lot of interesting phenomena in real life.  well, phenomena i find interesting.