Robyn, the cloth simulator in Blender seems to have very similar features to the one in Poser, although the controls are different. It took me a while to get my head around the differences. I don't think it is really more sophisticated.

Because you have the modelling features right there in Blender, it seems you can do more, using shape keys and keyframe animation to gather in the pleats.

I based this on a tutorial by Kent Trammel on BlenderCookie, where he did this with curtains and I thought I would try it with a dress.

I noticed that Blender's cloth simulator seems slow compared to Poser's - experimenting with it is time-consuming.

Vilters has a way of bringing back the pleat definition, which he posted in the Poser forum somewhere. It involves using the Poser morph brush to smooth out the pleats, then saving the result as a morph target, then after simming, applying that morph at a negative value. I haven't personally tried it.

Poser 11 Pro, Windows 10

Auxiliary Apps: Blender 2.79, Vue Complete 2016, Genetica 4 Pro, Gliftex 11 Pro, CorelDraw Suite X6, Comic Life 2, Project Dogwaffle Howler 8, Stitch Witch