The clothes collision system is very do-able. CL could purchase Havok Hardcore for around $50k and incorporate it into their system. Havok would provide not only soft body support but also cloth collision support, connectivity collisions and full physics. For example you could pose you figure then apply gravity. Havok would collide all bones and bounce them so the body collapses correctly to the floor. Clothes can collide not only with body parts but with surrounding meshes and even itself. Its not a bad way to go, especially for a rendering system. And its a one time license of 50k for a product with no royalties. Havok is written for game engines so its fast. Having it calc collisions for a still render scene is a no brainer. The next round of Maya and 3d studio will be using it.