@DPH: yes it was ref to the masses not knowing what SSS is. I should have said "submersion" instead of "rendition" to match the acronym/initialism, sorry, must be Gitmo on the brain.

I agree that Poserites are no more contentious than the other groups mentioned with one big difference - its not primarily app vs. app, its intramural, one group of poser users hectoring (to be mild) other Poser users. This is true not only in this technical debate but also in the perennial debate over how the schlocky non-artists are ruining Poser for the real artists.

While there is no doubt wisdom in the scale modeling anology, I disagree with the notion that SM is somehow abandoning the people who made Poser successful. Poser is and has always been for hobbyists. That term covers a lot of ground. There a lot of extremely talented and dedicated hobbyists (and a few professionals) who have done great things by hacking Poser's internals. There also seems to be general agreement that the vast majority of users just want to do what they've always dreamed of but never could do before, make pretty pictures of people, be it "art" or pr0n. People disagree passionately about what constitutes good, both from a technical and an artistic view.

To paraphrase Jefferson, it does me no injury for my neighbor to use raytraced shadows or no shadows. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. It may chafe that Poser gets no respect, but after switching from C to Visual Basic, I've been there and done that. The simple fact is that people do what makes them happy and beating the shit out of them is unlikely to make them change as I suspect BB knows. Whoever owns Poser has to walk a fine line between advancing the program and alienating the masses who pay the bills. The notion that creating uber Poser would gain more than it would lose seems to me to be iffy at best but that is pure speculation. Microsoft transformed VB into a more advanced tool and many developers just said no. No biggie for them, they have other languages - SM has only Poser.

You can certainly have both and DS is an example. I don't think they've suddenly seen the light, I think their aim all along was to be more accessible to the casual user - eg. DForms vs Poser Magnets, PowerPose, asset management - while enabling more advanced features for those that want them. The plugin architecture is well suited to that. Can SM do the same with Poser, I don't know but sans a complete rethinking it seems less likely.

The bottom line is that no matter what you want Poser to become, I see no need to be so harsh in disagreeing with people who have different views and want different things. Disagreement I can understand, passion I can understand but why the hostility? Where's the big tent? Unless Poser is your sole source of income, then why basy those who have different priorities and enjoy what they're doing. It is, or should be a computer program, not a religion demanding jerimiads against the heretics. You're not cloistered away in some beerhall, the occasional outsider does wander in, along with the odd hygeine challenged punter. You're at liberty to say whatever you want, however you want TOS willing but it seems to me that such an intelligent group could find a more respectful level of discourse. Frankly, I just don't see how advocating for improvements in Poser is helped by excoriating people who don't use Poser the way you think they should. I don't get it and I know I never will so I'll leave you to it.

"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be." - Rosalynn Carter

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken