Quote - To go back to some of what fell to snippage, armor, for those that use it, okay, but for me, that and all the skimpware fantasy, I don't have any.  Not my thing.

Hoops, the biggest hoop to jump through is DS4 itself in any of the many temporary in beta iterations so far released.  OR, the smallest hoop, the hardest one to get past is the program which was designed to support the Genesis figure.  And you have Genesis, the "be all-end all", what need would you have for a David 4?   Genesis, by your own words, is so much supererior, so much easier to use, any thought of a David 4 would seem to be heresy. 

When I referred to David 4, I spoke of before genesis. So genesis does in effect make him, and stephanie obsolete, since the scaling and body types those characters bring are no longer needed.

Quote - I have V4 and M4, morphs for exactly two characters that I sometimes use.  I also have Judy and Don, I would say I use them probably ten times as much as any other figures.  Now with Antonia WM, I can see where Judy will be used less, probably V4 not at all.  Granted, not much support for her, yet.  But what clothing is available, I think I've passed exactly one download of what has been offered.  What is important in what you do, you have to remember, is specific to you only as also applies to what is important to me.   

There was also a five year period that I used only P5, and a small amount of content, maybe three CD's worth.  The reason, I wasn't on line at all, voluntarily that way.  In that time, I learned to work in the face room fairly well, the cloth room a little, playing with some of the other functions that worked, but not all that well.  I had, and still have, a couple early versions of DS, but after an initial trial, they lived on CD and not in a computer.  I now have DS3A and DS4 free version, both installed on a computer that I never do anything I'm serious about.  For another week or so, when I get a new computer, that one becomes my internet box and nothing else.  DS4 will not be reinstalled, there is no need for my use. 

And were I in the middle of a project, as the OP stated, switching to DS now would be exceeding foolish.  He's already using P8, I believe, familiar with it, which means the nonexistent documentation for DS might as well be written in Sumerian linear A.  The number of newbie threads in the commons asking for help trying to get DS to recognize there is new content attests to how intuitive it is to use.  Of course, they could always refer to the documentation, maybe in 2022 or later.  "This feature coming soon" doesn't help.

But the main point of this conversation is choice in characters, not features of a program. Yes, the OP has poser 8, but he doesn't have much render experience with either program, so either one is going to have a learning curve. Using any of the newer characters is going to require an investment into an upgrade to either DS4 or Poser 9/2012. So it really comes down to which characters are going to serve his/her particular needs now and going forward, not cloth room, SSS, and the such. On the female side, there are many options available, but not so on the male side.