In the world of PCs, it is said that any component you buy is already 6 months outdated the day it goes on the market. 

I think the same is true in the world of CG art. It's one of those industries that are constantly evolving and changing on a daily basis, and it can be a lot to keep up with if you try to follow all of it. 

But at the same time it all boils down to what you're most comfortable using. All these figures and the content for them are only meant to be a starting point for building your own artwork from. The art itself comes down to individual talent. So after you've experimented with a handful of the most commonly supported figures and content to get a feel for how they function, pick the ones that you like working with the best and see how far you can push it to acheive the results you're looking for.

When I use other people's content to do renders, I try to customize it into something that's my own. That's what started me on learning how to build my own content anyway. I was modifying pieces that were already available, and building things I needed that I couldn't find. 

If you spend all your time and energy trying to keep up with what all the forum bickering is about, you're just wasting time that you could be spending on creating all that art you wanted to create when you started working with this stuff to begin with. I've wasted plenty of time myself over the years reading forum rants that ultimately meant nothing to me while I could have been spending that time doing what I enjoyed or needed to do instead. 

Everyone is going to have their own opinions, and their own favorites. There's no rule that says you have to follow anyone's recommendation if that doesn't work for you. There is plenty of info available on all these forums and other sites that give you everything you need to know to get started using whichever software/figure combo you want to use. And if none of those figures work quite the way you need them to work, Poser has plenty of tools that will allow you to customize a figure to do what you need it to do. You just have to learn how to use those tools. 

There are many people who have never touched a DAZ figure and have no interest in doing so, and they still produce great art with the figures they do use. Learn how to use the software you want to use, and photoshop, or some other 2D image editing program for postwork is really all you need. You can even use DS and Poser in conjunction with whatever workflow you you create for yourself. In the end, most sane people looking at the art you produce aren't going to care what program was used to create it.