Quote - But you can't just throw out a semi toon/ semi realistic vaguely humanoid shaped lump of polygons, call it a "blank canvas" and expect your average hobbyist user to turn it into something extraordinary.

 

Two bits: 

1. It is indeed true that a properly made and topo'd mesh can be made into pretty much anything.However, for a hobbyist program, sufficient tools to make that easier is a must. This includes morph dials, a program that does scaling without making conforming clothes into a headache, and a whole host of other little things.

 

2. The biggest problem with an out-of-the-box mesh that looks like someone or something is that it becomes damned tough to make that mesh look like something else.

To give an example, let's bring up some that I absolutely love to use: Terai Yuki, Neftoon Gal, Kururu, and Anime Doll. Let's also bring up the most wonderful blunder DAZ ever coughed up - the original Aiko. With these characters, there are features that you can never, ever, ever iron out certain aspects of. This is usually parts of the face, but can also be part of the body as well. For instance, Aiko's angular jaw and spindly build was damned near impossible to hammer out (until some kind soul figured out a way to weld SP2 morphs to it). Terai Yuki always looks like Terai Yuki in the face. Good luck hammering Laura 3's oval face into something usable without reaching for a poly-pushing app suite...

Speakin' of which, you can make morphs that will fix up a lot of these shortcomings, but it usually involves breaking out a modelling program and beating the crap out of the mesh - ever so gently, but still... Mind you, such things are well out of the reach of the typical hobbyist; most just barely figured out how to bend body parts. The bad news is, if the body changes, your clothing will need these modifications too. Sure, there's dnamic cloth, but that's Yet Another Layer Of Complexity that most folks don't want to deal with.

For some of us, no big deal. For most of the CG hobbyist market? It is a big deal. This is why you see V4 still holding the crown after how many years now? If Chris Creek does Dawn up right, this may change, but I don;t see that change coming from Smith Micro...

...just food for thought.