Quote - I can tolerate "stylized" and "idealized reality" in comic books, but not in 3D.

It's the same as photoshopped magazine covers made by pretentious "art directors" that try to trick people into believing the model on the cover would actually look that way in real life.

Either do outright toons, or do realism, but don't mix the two.
It's different in comic books because there the "2D" adds a layer of stylization even if the item is depicted in a "photorealistic" manner with accurate details, proportions and dimensions.

Love the old "Belgian school" where characters are decidedly "toonish" but the background is very realistic.

But it is too easy to lie in 3D. 
People are already manipulated and lied to by advertising. I don't want Poser or 3D in general to add to that by promoting just another instance of an "unobtainable reality".

That doesn't mean I don't want (some, most) of my figures to be "perfect specimens", so to say.
I just can't stand any attempt of manipulation.

I disagree. 3D is just another art form like painting or drawing, and most of the consumer 3D world exists in video games which are virtual reality worlds. They exist as places to escape reality for most people. 

The ability to scan a real person into a machine and be able to manipulate it is great for scientific or medical purposes and other means - replacing actors in a film for certain scenarios that might be either too dangerous, too expensive, or just impossible for real people to pull off, etc, - but that will never replace the artistic side of 3D which has always been its driving force. If it was going to, then it already would have in areas where it counts the most, which are video games and film. But those industries are still hiring artists to build their human models even though 3D scanning has been available for some time now, and is definitely affordable even on the low end of the budgeting scale. Those studios that use it for their projects still use artists to manipulate the scanned models into something that suits the style their project is aiming for - that thin line between realism and stylization that drives sales. But the great thing is technology has made it so that we can have the best of both worlds to suite all the different tastes and artists can blend and bend them to their liking. 

 

Quote -Don't Marvelous Designer clothes work in the Cloth Room?

yes but MD style clothing would remove the need for the cloth room cause the clothing drapes in real time. No waiting for dynamics to calculate, just load the clothes, click Drape, and they behave like actual fabric while you adjust the clothing or pose the figure. It is pretty damned spiffy. Of course it would require a complete redesign to implement that level of dynamics. 

Quote -He's refering to the Optitex dynamic tools in the first part of his post, not even DAZ can get those tools.

That's the part that's confusing me. There are dynamic clothes for sale at DAZ so how are those vendors making those clothes if no one can get the tools?

~Shane