Quote - Since we are tossing polygon numbers around...
A generic character in shrek had 60k polys for head/body/clothing and 760k for hair/fur.

Keep in mind that it's a generic character in a full-body image. The same article does not state the poly count for Shrek, but does say that Shrek had:

180 animation controls in Shrek's face
836 underlying "shapers" in Shrek's deformation system
585 body animation controls
90 muscles

Shrek wasn't a lightweight model. I haven't been able to find an article on the web that verifies that Jar Jar Binks had less polys than V4. The search results I got mixed in personal models of the character with game models and Clone Wars models.

One of the problems facing Poser figures is that the models are designed for all uses, whether it be a full body image that wouldn't need a large number of polygons or large textures.

I fall into the camp that mostly uses DAZ human figures because they have a greater level of support. When it comes to nonhuman figures, I'm more likely to use a Sixus1 figure or a nonDAZ figure because there are more choices outside of DAZ. I don't have a store bias. I'll use what fits into my vision rather than force myself to a specific usage.

There is definately a downside to having access to so much 3D content. Older Poser users are more likely to have learned modeling and texturing because they had no other choices. In some ways, that's bad because the average Poser user today is overall less technically proficient than a Poser users nearly a decade ago. Today's Poser/DS user can concentrate more on artistic creations than creating content. There's a bit of a balance there.

It's no sin not to master modeling and texturing. Look at the credits on any film with a lot of CGI and all the jobs are broken up into different specialties. The person animating a model isn't the same person that made the model or the same person that textured the model or the same person that rendered the model or the same person that created the backgrounds. There is more satisfaction in creating everything used in an image. There is still a lot of satisfaction in creating a good image even if all the parts of the image weren't made by the artist. A cook doesn't have to be a farmer to make a good meal (though the cook would be absolutely sure what's in the food if the cook grew it).

DAZ models are more popular simply because they developed a momentum early on when the native P4 models were comparatively primitive to Millennium characters that they developed a little later. That eventually created a market for those figures that nobody has broken yet. It doesn't mean it won't happen someday.

My visual indexes of Poser content are at http://www.sharecg.com/pf/rgagnon