Finally, here's a thread showing some hair render tests, using 90,000+ strands, and curly, complex stylings on the Sintel character.  Not ultra realistic, but about as good as the ones I've seen in any Carrara tests, except using full GI lighting too, with inter-strand shadowing.  Of course, it's capable of animation too, as you see in some of the other example vids.

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?289219-Sintel-hair-render-test

I think it's slightly misleading to suggest Blender can't do the same or better as Carrara with hair for animation, because the evidence is all over the place if you know where to look.

I think it's GREAT that Carrara has dynamic hair as it does.  I think it's even better that you and others are tutoring people on how to use it properly.  But there ARE other alternatives to great animated hair out there, especially in Blender, which cost the user nothing at all to use, and definitely competes with all the major production applications, like Maya or 3dsmax.  Again, you have me beat in the fact that Poser content is not natively supported.  You are correct there, and if that is important to the user, then Carrara is the way to go.  But let's not suggest that it isn't available anywhere else, at no cost.

Maya and 3dsmax do not support Poser natively.  You are again correct with that assumption.

Peace and love,

David.