I've tried Silo, Modo, Wings3D, Hexagon, Blender, Sketchup, Cinema4D and Cheetah3D (I'm a mac person).

I can't vouch for how compatible the app is with Poser, but for me Silo was the easiest and best tool for modeling out of all of them, and I often use my Silo models in Vue.  I really like being able to custom-configure my mouse and keyboard functions so I can work as fast (read: intuitively) as possible.  UV mapping may not be the greatest, but I do the mapping in Silo too.

It weighs in at about $150 and there's a PC version.

As an aside, I don't know how anybody gets modeling done in 3DS Max; that is one of the most cluttered, complicated, confusing and non-intuitive interfaces I've ever seen.  More power to you for getting anything done in it. :)

 

LH