"There has to be more to it than all that right?"

No, not really.

Poses are just what you describe. There is a massive amount of free ones, but remember some can be figure spacific. But you will find often it is much easier to apply a pose then spend and hour posing 1 figure. As far as buying poses, that is dependent on you, would you find the poses valuable? I several instences, especially with larger pose pack they are.

Somce characters are just spun dials. Sounds easy but give it a try some time. Often the character is nice enough it's worth it, especially with celebrity morphs. Some characters are made with morph targets, those have been modeled, not soemthign you will get dial spinning.

Morph packs are always valuable. As in V4's morphs ++. With out them you just have a bunch of clones ;)

You can be frugle with DAZ figure clothes. Join the Platinum club, it may cose $30 to start, but give's you a bunch of clothes for $1.99 to chose from. You can easily save that $30 in discounts on your first order. 5X15=75 5X2=10 ;)