for the "glitch" go into the graph editor to smooth it

also look at knocking down the frame rate (if you haven't) poser default is 30 fps if you can get away with 20fps it will save you 30 mins + on every second of animation

Blenders great init just getting into that myself!! now I have never tried it but I think blender could make hdr images for backgrounds, Carrara can and its been on the 3d mags as a freebie (older ones) so partner can relax lol. I'm on a budget for this stuff too but since I started doing my own modeling I spend very little on content and its so much fun making it yourself

 

nice work on the ani's by the way