"In Poser you draw the bones and there you go - everything within that bone's influence is affected."

Huh ?
Ever heard of spherical falloff zones ?

Sure, rigging in Poser from scratch isn't easy, but as long as a figure is at least remotely human, you just can apply another figures' rig in a few seconds.
Then all you have to do to modify that rig.

Again, rigging in Ppser is no 5min job. And looking at V4.2, It's obviously too hard to master even for the DAZ professionals.
But it's obviously a lot easier to implement than weightmapping, because otherwise the makers of Poser could have used THAT, instead of developing a completely new rigging system.

Found a YouTube video showing a simple rig created in Lightwave:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1dSIEgmMZA&feature=related

If it's so easy, why has none of the DAZ or Poser meshes been professionally weightmapped yet ?
Not those crude automated conversions, but a feature film quality weightmapped rig for V3 or V4 ?

Because noone NEEDS a weighmapped Vicky.
The Studios want to create new brands, so they need originality.
Do you really think that they will share royalties with DAZ or SmithMicro just so they don't have to pay a modeller to create an original mesh from scratch ?

Do you really think that a professional modeller who spent years to hone his skills all of a sudden says:
"Oh man, that Vicky 4 Girl sure is hawt and now she comes even pre-rigged for Max.
I can't wait to use her in my artwork so that it'll look exactly like those of every Dick, Jane and Harry who downloaded her for $1.99 from DAZ."

There is no market for premade stuff in the professional CGI world except for generic items like cars or houses or stuff.

Try to tell a songwriter that performing other people's music is on the same artistic level as composing a song note by note.
Poser artists are the Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls of CGI. (If they are lucky)
MAX and MAYA users are the Bob Dylans and Beatles.

How hard is it to grasp that "some" people have higher standards than others and "good" is just not "good enough" for them.
The professionals might use Poser for to cut some corners on a less important job, but for the real important stuff, they will do what they always did:
Create every single polygon from scratch so that they can make sure that everything works exactly like they want it to.

Anyway, I'm sure the Poser development team knows which side their bread is buttered on, and that it's not the wannabe professionals that'll pay their paycheck.
That's why we still have the P4 renderer, the "simple materials" option and the brilliant Kai Krause GUI.

Poser is the Volkswagen among the CGI apps.
A truly "Peoples Program" that gave CGI to the unwashed masses, constantly improved and refined, but resistent to changes just for changes sake so it not only becomes "new", but truly "better".

As I said, I'm all for a better Poser.
But don't spit on the people that made Poser what it is today: The hobbyist tinkerers and those who fill the galleries with kitschy NVIATWAS.

And yes, even devoloping a completely separate "über-Poser" will harm the "actual" Poser, because I somehow doubt Smith-Micro will pay two separate development teams.