I think it depends on what you want to do, but it really comes down to the fact that the end justifies the means
Most of my pictures involve figures, sometimes I create a terrain as background, mostly use HDRI for background and lighting basis.  Funnily enough I am working on a picture at the moment using RuntimeDNA's original Infinity Cove as backdrop, not with  a photo but with a texture (wait and see!)

@thefixer - the first such prop as far as I know was created a long time ago by "Poser Nerd", but I don't think it's still available. It had the advantage (for some pictures) of being curved (like the original Infinity Cove and Cyclorama instead of being a vertical wall and horizontal floor, but then again, "the end justifies the means"...

@ksanderson - Bagginsbill's VSS for Poser is in the first place not a shader, but rather a convenient way of applying any shader to almost any figure. It's a coincidence that he is also working on shaders..
I still think that Vue is far superior to Poser for rendering, regardless of what shaders you're using. I quite like the results that I get (when I have time to do anything!) whether I'm using my own shaders or SkinVue or different Poser shaders. Doesn't mean that I'm totally happy with the results, though :unsure:

Main thing is, we can count ourselves lucky that we've got tools like Vue and Poser

Enjoy
Rob