Dajadues, I'm glad you didn't have problems with Poser 5--but I bought it when it first came out and it took about 2 years for them to release suffceint patches so that it was useable.  That was the version where they added the most new features, hair, cloth, and the face room.  To be honest it hasn't been all that bad that e-frontier had taken it over;  at least they released update patches in a much more timely factor.  Oh and let us not forget, Poser 5 introduced product activation--that was a real pain in the rear.  So few people upgraded from P4 that in the first patch Curious Labs did away with it.  A lot of people had the fortune to get Poser 5 for free, and by the time it was given away all the bugs had been worked out.  Oh and another thing--there was no simplified materials room in Poser 5 and I don't get the node system at all. . .

Most all the Metacreations sell offs have changed hands more than once.  Painter and the light version of Ray Dream Studio (now called something else)  are the only applications that I know of that weren't  resold. Since Corel bought Painter and they've really made significant and good progress in improving it features and stability.  Metacreations had originally bought it from some other company., whose name escapes me. 

Painter:  developed by company 1---sold to Metacreations---sold to Corel

Canoma:  developed by Metacreations--sold to Adobe and shelfed.

Carrara:  Metacreations (combined Ray Dream and another 3D program)--Evovia--Daz

Poser:  Developed as an add on for Painter--company 1--Metacreations--Curious Labs--e-frontier--Smith Micro.

I suppose that if they rewrote Poser from the ground up we'd end up paying a lot more for it, then people would be complaining that it was too expensive and that it was priced out of the market.  If you look at Carrara's interface you can see how it is related to Poser, it's very simiar---even though they've changed some things.