I don't think Ryan and Alyson are bad figures - they're just not as developed as the poser community would have wanted - deadlines or not.  Frankly, I think it would have been better to tweak and update some of the previous figures, i.e. Jessi and James G3, rather than to make new figures from scratch.  

But it's not just the figures.  There's not a lot of dynamic clothing or hair included to go along with these Ryan and Alyson.  The included textures are not photorealistic.  So while it's possible for very good artists to make these figures look good, doesn't that defeat the point of Poser in making quality 3D accessible to everyone?