Quote - Lunedust my advice to you would be close your acount at CGTalk & ignore the retards on there.

Oh, that's a brilliant statement.

Yes, head in sand, always the best way to stay in one's own opinion, but not particularly good when trying to learn about things.
Those "retards" also happen in alot of cases to be the people making all the advances in CG Land, and while certain opinions can be overloked, it's hardly beneficial for anyone wanting to learn to ignore the rest of what they say.

I'm not getting deep into it, because I really don't care, but it's been my understanding that it's more the fact that the figures are always one of maybe ten, and everbody uses them to death. They're instantly recognizable, and most people don't do much beyond slapping someone else's stuff together and call it art.
I'm not saying it isn't, just answering the question as it seems to be asked.

It's not just Poser, not just CGTalk, not just CG. Take a paint-by-numbers picture and upload it to a fine art forum, and see if you don't get the same reaction.

The truth is, yes, most of those people do consider Poser to be crap. However, there are quite a few, very prominent, very well-respected, very accomplished CG professionals I've seen saying the opposite. As their level of professionalism rises, they seem to be more inclined to accept whatever gets the job done, whatever it takes to meet the deadline. Many use Poser as pre-viz, to have something to show a client, something that can be done up quickly.