I have used Poser for nearly 14 years now and I use it for animation mostly.  I recomend unique threads for each major subject, like one for assistant labs(walk designer, talk designer). Freeform animation(key lab, drag and pose, so on).  One for animating off video, (backgrounding the video to pose wireframe figures over it). And one for dynamic animation, (hair, clothing, foilage, and Physics).  There's just so many attributes to animating that it could create a messy thread putting them all into one.

The question on how to approach animating a project is directly related to the project itself.  I found that my personal preferences on how to approach a project are pointless.  IK are manditory for some projects, and unusable for others.  It's the same with dynamic vrs conforming.  As is walk in place vrs a walk path and so on. (I'm sure you can all relate.)  For nearly every major project I had to dive in deeper to learn new (new to me) techniques for real success.  I will never master all of it completely.

I love the power of Poser and its ability to generate powerfull animations.  I linked to an example of my work. (sorry to change the rating on this thread, the link contains slight nudity.)