Quote - 1. For the record: despite the title of this thread, I was never asking the question whether I should CHOOSE BETWEEN Poser 8 and Daz Studio Advanced. I have P8 and will use it. I basically wanted to know if I would find the power of DSA compelling enough to use it as well. But I'm well aware that threads take on a life of their own.

I dont have Poser 8...I am still using 7 right now....I have used Poser consistently since version 4 and have built content for Poser for nearly 10 years.
I have DSA as well...is it better than Poser? well IMO probably yes!!
Definitely in some areas...the 3 Delight renderer is a better renderer than the Firefly period, if someone tells you differently they havent learnt both renderers thoroughly.
The 3 Delight renderer is used in SI XSI and Maya and other hi end apps and is used for many movies (chronicles of Narnia...Superman returns, it is an incredibly accurate renderer...far more accurate than the Firefly renderer (but its a good idea to set the shading rate down to 0.2 or thereabouts to get the best results)
Now the Firefly is a great renderer for portraits and the like (and many users get stunning renders from it...that is a fact) but not that good for large scenes, I could write pages on the reason why...but I wont , suffice to say...you wont see the 3 Firefly renderer used in Maya or SI XSI or Max etc..
Thats reason enough to use DSA.
Then theres the subject of interface customization...Poser has set rooms...in DSA by learning how to customize the interface you can have as many rooms as you like dedicated to different tasks...like lighting, rigging, texturing etc.. not only that but each of these rooms can have a different tool set, and directory content location specified on the hard drive to load from.
What that means is you dont have to navigate from one content directory to another, it can be set to load from DS content as well as Poser content etc...each one from a different room...and screen layout etc...is all customizable in each room.
In this area its light years ahead of Poser...and even many DS users dont know about these features in DS.

The dynamic cloth in DSA although good is too exclusive IMO tho...I prefer the Poser dynamic cloth, and also I like the usabilty of the Poser shaders as well, so I wont be ditching Poser, but it is taking a back seat more and more.

To see some of the renders in DS I put a link to a city I recently built and rendered in DS...hit the thumb, then the magnifying glass to see a full view of each pic, then F11 to switch to full screen.

Andoria-City!
Cheers