wow interesting points being made in this thread.

I understand Blackhearted's points being made. When a company is dealing with marketing to new users, what one gets "out of the box" does matter. How usable is it out of the box? To a new user being introduced to Poser via Poser Pro, I would say there are additional costs to consider; be one a professional or a hobbiest.

I started using Poser 1 as a hobbiest and purchased each successive version for business in professional applications. My colleagues and I have been using Poser models in medical, industrial, and entertainment promotion and presentations. The lack of quality base models strikes me as a bit odd for that reason. I doubt that adding the word Pro is meant to filter out some users thus curtailing valuable sales. Not all professional users of Poser are modelers by trade.

Aside from the low quality of the base characters,  I am not yet convinced that Poser Pro (even at $200) is worth the upgrade for other reasons. I'm still on XP32 so I'm still looking into Pro/Cons but I'm guessing the next version should feel more complete.