I agree with everything you said, PBM. Good observations!

I have to think of those who are new to 3D, though, and what they might think ...

"DAZ Studio":  Free. Cool. Does a lot of really neat things. Nice renders! Amazing! If all they want to do is pose and render, it does the job. And it's free!

Next level is usually "How do I make my own clothing"? And that is where the choice gets a little tougher. Depends on whether you want to create it for your own use, or create it to make some extra money.  So you look at the two most likely mid-range programs for the job:

-- Poser ... Cool. Has a nice material room, and dynamic hair and clothing. Wow, that dynamic clothing is really awesome because it falls so nice.

-- Carrara 3D Express, which can also use Poser content, and has fundamental primitive modeling, but you have the landscape features in there which make it tempting as the next level up. No dynamic hair modeling (though it will render), and no dynamic clothing. So let's bump Carrara up a notch or two.

-- Carrara Standard, or Carrara Pro (with pro being geared more for animators, I think, because of the network rendering). Really cool. A lot of bang for the buck. I can use all the same content as Poser, but now I have landscaping, physics, three different modelers, and all that other cool stuff. Hmmm ... I can create dynamic hair (that far surpasses Poser's), but not dynamic clothing. Not bad! The extra modeling features are more than enough tradeoff for the dynamic clothing (at least, in my mind).

BUT

If all you want to do is create stuff for your own use, in addition to using existing content, Carrara is the most logical choice. You can import your figures, and model/rig clothing in Carrara using its internal rigging methods.

However, if your goal is to create Poser content for sale or distribution, you need Poser at this point in time, for rigging and testing. But because Poser doesn't have a modeler you still need one of those. There ARE free ones, but having the ability to load a Poser figure, dial in the morphs, and model around figures all in the same program is a huge plus.

I'm trying to be as unbiased here as possible. I see the strengths and weaknesses in all the solutions ... and time can only tell what is in store in the future. But if I were coming into the 3D rendering arena now, Carrara would be the most tempting solution. There's a LOT of room to grow, and a LOT to learn.