At the risk of sounding like a Vue commercial, but to illustrate the idea of a multi level interface.

Overview of Vue's three level material editing

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/vue/vue_10_studio/?page=10

The AdvancedGraph editor  (level 3)

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/vue/vue_10_modules/?page=advancedgraph

Some features including:

"Control materials based on the properties of other objects

Advanced Python node for custom functions

Advanced SmartGraph input nodes: screen position, angle of incidence, distance to camera, distance on ray, depth in object, distance to object below, incident light angle, light direction, light color, reflected direction, etc."

IDK whether you can create fishscales but someone did create chainmail. At any rate, the point is the 'basic' editor is pretty similar to Poser and the AdvancedGraph editor lets power users go wild but the 'advanced' (not to be confused with AdvancedGraph) editor fits nicely between the two.

NB. you can get the AdvancedGraph module for $39 for the free Vue Pioneer or $99 Frontier (imports static Poser Content). I mention that only to try to forestall the 'yeah but Vue is a gazillion dollar application...' IDK whether it would be worthwhile for SM ti have an internediate .'module' It would make more sense to include it in the base and make the advanced editor optional/included in Pro as long as the advanced editor's output could be used by everyone. OK, bad idea :-)

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken