I don't understand all the arguing either.  I like em both and you can make great art in both.  If it weren't for studio I would not have poser b/c when I was trying to get into poser it didn't have a free trial...that was a lot of money for me to spend on something that I didn't know if I could use ;)  I got poser 7 for 45 bucks around the time 8 rolled out on clearance at smithmicro.  

I'm looking into poser 9 now for the new render stuff otherwise I would just stick with Poser 7 :)