Poser 8's dependence on Flash turned me off as well... not to mention the tiny thumbnail icons, keyboard shortcuts not working, the removal of the super-fast Poser 4 Renderer, etc...

Quote - Lots of programs we use every day depend on so-called "external software", some of which are add-on Microsoft components (e.g. .NET)

Just because lots of programs do it doesn't make it correct. The problem is that the software becomes dependent on the external software. Suppose Adobe updates Flash to fix a "known bug" and Poser stops working- is this the user's fault for not downloading today's version of Flash? Or is it Poser's fault for requiring Flash? If Poser just stops working, will the user know to update Flash or will he get frustrated with Poser?
And if Flash 8 works fine for every other application (including viewing videos at YouTube and Hulu), why do I need Flash 11.5 Beta in order to use Poser?

And like other people have said, Flash does have some security holes, and when you base your software on someone else's, you inherit those same security holes.

As for the iPod and Flash, there are numerous discussions about the "real reason" on tech sites, Apple sites, Flash sites, etc. But one of the conclusions is that Flash allows developers to create applications which run within a browser, which Apple can't control. And since Apple is selling applications, they don't want anything free to compete with their marketplace.
There are also arguments about how Flash applications can have their own interface, which takes away from Apple's "elegant" UI.

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