>> I suppose that it's all a matter of perception.

Indeed it is.

You have yours.

I have mine -- and as I have said several times over and over and over, I take full responsibility for that position.

But mine comes from almost a decade's involvement with this program and its change from a truly community-driven user base to merchants who flock to DAZ to see what they're supposed to work from next, which has resulted in a narrower and narrower culture. One page of gallery thumbs doesnt change what the full gallery itself truly is, sorry, just as few screen grabs of the current offerings at DAZ doesnt alter the fact that the overwhelming majority of items offered there are all purposely designed around the Showgirl and her... ahem... assets. And, as I've said repeatedly, that's fine, if that's what you want. I dont, which makes me sort of the unwanted guest at this all-DAZ-all-the-time-hosted party,

And I dont think anyone's ever said that places like CGTalk are any panacea here. I dont consider CGTalk to be anything more than a forum for CG students and wannabes, not professionals. It's like "Ads of the World", a forum that purports to host discussion on print media fand is frequented to an overwhelming degree by art school kids trying to look oh so impressive. But saying CG is a slam-dunk dispute of my argument... well, that's not my point, that's yours. Mine (and I repeat: mine and mine alone) is that, with the direction this package has gone, I'm not sure I no longer care about Poser's future development.  I dont care about the incessant, cookie-cutter textures and morphs for V4.x, because I personally find the mesh itself a bloated waste of virtual space, awkward to work with, poorly designed and overhyped. The A4 morph they carved out of it is freakishly ugly, IMHO*,* and the male morphs are two steps shy of an embarassment. It is thanks, as usual, to the users to make anything barely tolerable out of the mess thrown our way.

And yet this is the mesh our universe now revolves around because there's seemingly no alternative -- well, there is, of course, but because we want our images pretty right out of the box instead of putting the work into them to make them look pretty, we'll discard everything but the Showgirl, an action that IMHO has hobbled the development of this program irrevocably. As much as I applaud the work of folks like Patorak, the harsh reality is that chances are very good it wont find support in the community and will ultimately disappear. We've seen it happen several times over the years. I wish him well with his Plain Jane project, but, history being history, I'm not optimistic about it. It will wind up a niche, crushed under the relentless Vickie bandwagon... because Vickie is clearly and obviously what the Poser community wants. And that's fine -- it's just not for me. Never has been, never will be... particularly with the direction it's headed right now.

So no, I'm not abandoning Poser: I'll probably still be using it long after it's disappeared from the marketplace from lack of support (or been absorbed into the Microsoft that is DAZ). But at the same time... well, never mind -- the point's been made.

And no, I dont see the situation changing. Water will not be running uphill anytime soon in the Poserverse. I accepted that too a very long time ago. But that doesnt alter the fact that it's a pretty sad state of affairs.

Finally, thanks to the folks who have posted in this thread, both pro and con. You've certainly given me much to think about, and I appreciate that.

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