Also looking forward to Poser 8 as I didn't upgrade to Poser 7. Started upgrading my software every other release unless there is something new that really blows me away.

Hopefully that picure is just a morph of Alisons. I think I've said it before, but I'll say it again. To give the user the ability to create varied and more realistic (or stylised) characters, the base mesh has to be fairly neutral (Like V4). It is the morphs that make the character. It's all very well creating a figure that looks really good from the box, but not so good when you try to make it look different.
I've seen complaints about the current Poser boxed figures in this thread, and I've got to agree. Poser was designed so people without expensive modelling programs and years of 3d experience could create artwork and animations with people in it. No good to the amateur unless all your female pictures are supposed to have "Victoria Beckham" in them.
No disrespect to the merchants. Many of them have created fantastic new character sets for these figures, which do make them look different to the default. It would just be nice if say a newbie could do that for themselves. I think that the inclusion of the face room, and the morphing tools in P7 have tried to address this. I don't know about the morphing tools but the face room is almost next to useless.
Most fantastic characters I've seen have been "dial spun" or created using morphs done in other programs on Daz3D figures.
I will get Poser 8 as long as they haven't screwed with interface too much, not for the figures, but for the ease of use and hopefull new and improved features to the program itself (cannot get my head around the DS gui).

Daz Studio 4.8 and 4.9beta, Blender 2.78, Sketchup, Poser Pro 2014 Game Dev SR5 on Windows 8 Pro x64. Poser Display Units are inches