Quote - let's see now.

V-Ray, standard price, around $1000
Maxwell Render - $746
Final Render - $1000 (about. no one price for the basic)
Brazil - $905
Mental Ray - No Direct Price LIsted.

so. taking into account say bulk prices etc... you really want poser to jump in price by at least %100?
(thats a base price of $249 for poser, and taking into account V-Ray for trueSpace was marketed at $299 so roughly %100. (yes I know it's a little over lol))

Absolutely. I own Maxwell -- purchased for $495 if memory serves. Maxwell's got plugins for all sorts of applications . . . but not for Poser. Hell, I even forked out money for Poser Fusion to be able to host scenes in other applications (too bad it works so poorly). There's a big market here, and Smith (or Daz) needs to wake up.

If Smith Micro wanted to do something for users, they'd strike a deal with one of the many quality 3rd party renderers. You should remember that the pricing you cited is for professional installations with renderfarm support-- one of the many applications would presumably be available to a consumer application at a reduced price-- the educational pricing should give you a sense of what they'd be willing to sell to a non-professional (and very large) market (eg $100 to $200).

Quote -
sorry mate. I'll take it at $249 and use another render engine I can get for FREE like Kerkythea.

Bottom line for me: Smith Micro wants to sell me something that's worth paying for an upgrade, Global Illumination -- which is five year old technology-- ain't it.

To take one very common capability that would dramatically change the experience of using Poser for most people: Instancing. Poser cries out for instancing, which is a feature in every modern render engine.