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It no doubt figured into the sale, because if I were selling something like this, I'd want to demonstrate the huge user base and its various websites around the world.

This is probably true, that it figured into the price.
Speaking of which, I dunno, but six mil seems a little cheap, if you ask me. Not that I really know one way or the other, but it just "feels" cheap. As I said, I'd have no idea if that is in fact too low a price or not. I'd be curious to know how much EF paid CL, and how much EF asked for initially and if there was any haggling before settling on six mil with SM.

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Everything in life is a tradeoff iof features vs price, and poser is no different. You want advanced features, you need to shell out bucks for a more robust program. Same with paint applications, office applications, or buying a new car.

I'm glad SM is coming out with a new Pro version, although I'm a bit apprehensive since it's only going to be 400 bucks. Or was that 500?
Either way, it's doesn't inspire much confidence that it's going to really be "pro", with better "pro" features. The exporters, sure, but I really hope that's not the extent of it.
I hope they continue with their regular Poser development and keep the non-pro versions at a similar price to now, but I'd like to see them also develop an "ultimate" version, something with a far better skeleton rigging system than they have now - something similar to LW in terms of ease of use, and with weight maps and so on. Plus, advanced lighting, GI, and all that and...basically bring everything including the material options up to par with the "pro" apps. Oh yeah, and the ability to import subpatched LWO2 objects without "losing" the UV maps would be cool, too. ;-)

Another thing I can think of is, it doesn't seem to make any difference how large or detailed of a bump map one makes, it seems Poser can only render only so much detail. That could definitely stand to be improved.

I don't hate Poser, but it takes just too much work and hacks to get it to do what I want, particularly in the lighting and rigging departments. Some far advanced version with more intuitive tools would definitely be worth it, money-wise and possibly even bring Poser into the mainstream.