"Alyson's body scheme (breasts are not part of her chest but rather her shoulders) freaks me out. And I sorely miss the ability to use V4 skin textures with Gabe's shaders."

they actually bend better. think about it - when a woman (or man, for that matter) stretches her shoulder back or forward, her breasts/pecs will move.

"Gabe, did you choose Alyson 2 as a foundation because V4's mesh or rigging wouldn't do what you wanted it to do?"

that, and after what Daz did with Genesis i do not want to put all of my eggs into their basket anymore.  Anastasia was part personal challenge and part trying to help give customers back their CHOICE in what figure to use. besides, Alyson 2 is already in everyones runtimes - so why not?  i wish i could have made her Alyson 1 compatible as well but that just wasnt in the cards, and id rather continue developing for -- and adding features to -- Anastasia than working on an entirely new rig for backwards compatibility. poser 9/2012's lighting and renderer improvements, Subsurface Scattering, weight mapping and the morph brush are worth upgrading to in a heartbeat.

cheers,
-gabriel*