That's true. I've seen some awesome C4D skin e.g. the 'Silent Man' tutorial, but most of the shaders I've seen released (at least the free ones) looked to deliver rather unimpressive results. Maybe people keep those to themselves once they've jumped all the hurdles - Poser users are actually rather 'spoiled' in that regard. Those with the requisite interest/talent/patience are always going to be able to get good results with just about any renderer. Frankly though though, wider use is going to require something on the order of EZskin or SkinVue, for those who would prefer to use that energy on other aspects of the process.

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