Quote: "The tools themselves don't always work reliably, and the dials are a bit too slow at times."

More RAM memory will probably help with the tools and dials, and make sure you close any unnecessary programs running ion the background.

Quote: "I've always had trouble getting poses to come out the way I want them to in P4."

Me too! I've always had trouble getting poses to come out the way I want them to in any version of Poser, but the above is a bit of a vague statement. How do you want them, and in what way are they not like what you want?

General advice: Steer clear of the Translate/Pull tool, use the dials, or the Rotate and Twist, only. Dials should always be used for fine adjustment. Use a long enough focal length so that the figure does not look distorted, I find 80mm to 200m good for a full figure.

My work flow is something like this. First thing I do is turn off IK. I work out from the hip. I start with approximate rotations of the hip, then work down the legs to the feet, then work up to the head and eyes, and finally do the arms and hands. When I have an approximation of the pose, I just tweak where it looks most necessary until I (hopefully) get what I want. The Memorize and Restore functions are your best friends whilst posing, also make use of the pose dots to store a pose every time you think you have made a major improvement. When raising the arms above the head, put half of the bend in the collar. Using reference photos can be a good idea, you can set one as a background, then use Outline Display Style, when you want to see through your figure to the photo.