Every new version or iteration of Poser that is released, there's always speculation in the forums about the new features and a small glimmer of hope that spherical falloff rigging paradigm will be dropped. The new features are often disappointing (or behind the curve) and the rigging remains the same.

I think there comes a time when users want more than what Poser can offer but don't want to lose access to the tons of content available for it. From what I have seen, software doesn't fundamentally change so you probably won't see the changes that you suggests, so it may be time to look at something else.

According to the forums, Cinema4D + Interposer Pro offers the best native support for Poser content. I personally can't wrap my mind around the interface but some people love it. I think the best intermediate solution is Carrara - you can import Poser content but it uses weightmaps (as of version 5), and when you see them in action you'll have a better appreciation for low poly figures. I didn't really like the material editor.

So then you've got the "hosting plugins" route ala PoserFusion. IMHO it's better to stick with Poser because everyone I've used (which is everyone except the Greenbrier plug and the new PoserPro Collada) [a] is a nightmare to set up and get working, [b] requires a trip back to Poser to make changes or [c] is merely an importer; which you can do by hand PLUS you'll still need to learn the inner workings of the new prog or [d] is really inefficient on system resources OR brings Poser's instabilities to an otherwise rock solid app.

So it was really difficult, but I had to leave the DAZ figures behind. Currently I'm using Quidam, MakeHuman and Dork / Dorkette, modelling my own props in Maya + Renderman Studio. Definitely out of Poser's price point but it really doesnt get more Pro than that. Not only is it a stable and fast workflow, but there are SOOOOOO many cool ways to squeeze the most out of a render. My current favorite is "rendertime geometry swapping" where has simple polygon cubes that stand-in for highly detailed / high poly models which are only loaded at rendertime.

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BTW, I know we're not talking about hardware but I had to throw in the fact that I'm using Maya on an Intel IMac and I think I've crashed it once during the past year. Furthermore it has been 15 days, 11 hours and 39 minutes since I've last rebooted / restarted it. I'll never go back to Windows.