"Roxie and Dawn's mesh seem designed to follow the musculature of the female body as I understand the point of topology. So they're doing what they're designed to do."

They seem to. To your untrained eyes. But they aren't.

Noone ever said their topology is a complete mess. But why be content with 50% if you can have 95% ?

And even IF they were following female anatomy perfectly, that would still be "not good enough" because the more versatile a Poser mesh is, the better. There are women out there with more musculature than many men and also very feminine men. And then there are children and aliens and monsters and faeries and cartoon figures.

So a mesh that has all those possibilites built right in is simply so much more practical than one that focusses on a single shape. (But as I said, Dawn and Roxy might look "sufficient for an average female" to you at first glance, but they really aren't)

Rigging is another story. Splitting Genesis-2 again into a male and female figure allowed better rigging for each base shape. It solved also a psychological problem,as many vendors didn't like to work with a 100% androgynous mesh like Genesis 1.

Some people like to believe DAZ meshes are so popular because DAZ was at the right time at the right place. And that they pumped a lot of money in advertising. And that vendors then simply followed the herd. And once one Vicky was popular, the next Vicky was popular, too. And so on.

But that's only a fraction of the truth.

The DAZ figures are simply better designed. That's why they are popular.

And a big part of that better design is the better topology.

I can make any mesh look pretty or handsome. I can fix the rigging problems of any mesh, too. I can make any mesh look more realistic.

And I pretty much actually did that with every native Poser mesh.

But why spend my precious time with a poorly designed mesh if I can get better results faster from a mesh of better design ?

Is there any medal to be earned for supporting native Poser meshes ?

Let's be honest here:

If Vicky-6 would work natively in Poser one way or the other, 99% of the people now sticking with V4, Dawn or Roxy, would switch in a heartbeat.

Like they switched from V3 to V4 and never gave Jessi or Sydney or Alyson even so much as a second look.

That's what I wanted to explain:

There IS an actual, tangible difference between DAZ and all the other meshes.

NOT wanting to work with Dawn or any Poser figure is not a decision I made on a whim.

It's the result of 13 years of experience working with all kinds of figures.