On a 64bit system with a 64 bit OS I feel Pro runs a hell of a lot better. My renders look fantastic (less texture compression to get it to render) and it runs faster. I can do larger scenes as well. Seems to be a lot less buggy and the interface runs faster. Haven't tried the talk thing but it looks customizable since it runs on xml files.

I use poser professional to create subscription stories and this was worth it to me. I have my own batch render python script so I don't use the queue but its a nice addition for someone with no batch rendering ability. Plus Pro seems to play nicer with shared libraries across multiple machines.

I wouldn't call it poser 8, more like poser 7 sr1.