Well I think the OP has a valid point; of course an artist can do photorealistic stuff with a pencil without the need of expensive computers and software, but we are talking about hobbyists here.

I mean, going back to Poser 3, could someone new to 3D redering get the same results as with Poser 7? I doubt it. Could a computer back in the day handle a V4 or a G2 figure?