Quote - I think the very essence of these figures is that you use your own creative ability to "fix" them to suit your own purpose. They are a starting point, a time saver. To level this degree of criticism against them to my mind indicates that folks have totally missed the point.

the average home user wants something they can unpack and use. to expect them to be 'thankful' for content that came with a program they paid for, and now they have to extensively alter to come close to matching free content that has been around in some cases for 8+ years is rediculous.
again, poser will be judged in part by its content. when someone picks up a poser box or looks at their promo pages, they dont care what 'potential' these figures might have after countless hours of morphing or after third party merchants have had their way with them. they want to see what they can achieve now.

much of the entry level poser market are either people dabbling in 3D art as a hobby, or artists and professionals that need figure visualizations or reference. in either case they will want something that either:

1. looks visually appealing
2. looks and poses like an average, anatomically correct human being
   from what i see, out of the box the poserpro models are neither.

and can we drop the 'low poly background figure' excuse already? it has been pointed out already that 10k is neither low poly, nor is 'low poly' necessarily synonymous with 'unrealistic'.

as a merchant, i am very concerned about the success of poser. but even if you are not a merchant you should be concerned since the popularity and future development of poser depends heavily on how the average consumer perceives poser. its absolutely absurd that i actually have to come here in a forum and argue about these models when the problems with them are glaringly apparent to even a layman. they should never have been released in their current form without tweaking - 'theyre meant to be tweaked later by people' is weak. even poser 3 models were usable out of the box as they were. this isnt even about 'preference' or whether or not you 'like' their bases bodies and faces, as if this were a vicky or stephanie discussion. this is about the fact that they do not look human.

poser should look and feel like a polished, professional program and come with a pair of models that can be used out of the box for visualizations, as a nude model pose resource for traditional artists, a basis for digital painting, comics, etc that the program is advertised for. these models are not suitable for those purposes and are a clear step backwards from previous versions of poser.

stop defending them and work on fixing them, nothing like this is set in stone and it is never too late to fix something.