It's near impossible to challenge the Daz Figure/Content marketing machine.  Only way it could be done is if SM created a similar mechanism to push their wares. Who knows if that will EVER happen.

But isn't the real issue here economics?  Despite all the testerone being sprayed needlessly on the deckplates, Daz & SM are both businesses who have almost certainly seen their revenue fall significantly.  One gets the impression that between the perpetual sales, Vault auctions, platinum nonsense, and every other scheme daz has cooked up, they have taken a large hit in recent years.  I'm reading comments on both sides of daz/poser users who have spent so much for V4/M4/Daz-rendo-rdna content etc, that Daz(and everyone else) is probably going to sell much less in the near term than planned.  Same goes for other sites as well.  Couple that with increasinly rampant piracy and an economic recession/depression created by these self-appointed financial "masters" of the universe and you have the makings of a very bad brew.  If things get much worse economically, will the purchase-addict mentality, "loyalty" of it's users to either app/figure type, whatever,.. be enough? 

With the same logic as those predisposed to buying content pack dialspins and more of the same clothing types, I wonder how much revenue poser/daz is really going to generate.  However they do, I really think it won't be worth taking the financial hit for both companies to go separate ways, at this point. Perhaps if times were better...

Personally, I too think the posturing will go on a bit longer, but I'm interested to see what the bottomline will force both these companies to do in the months ahead (if anything).  There is simply too much speculation mixed with fact/rumor/innuendo out there to know, for now.