I'd say yes, it's totally worth it.  I've had gaming rigs, so I've always had pretty good video cards.  Poser's rendering has ALWAYS bugged me.  It certainly has IDL flaws.  BagginsBill is a wizard, and can eek very good results out of it but I am only a padawan, not a Jedi master.  I pretty much gave up on scenes (enclosed spaces), Poser's implementation of lighting would drive me nuts trying to sort things out. I've used BB's environment sphere and light meter too.

I've found Octane to be far easier in terms of the lighting to the hobbyist.  Place lights as you would in the real world, and it behaves pretty like you'd expect it.  I never got that in Poser.  All these tricks of IBLs and 50 lights trying to illuminate a scene.  I've tried Luxrender as well, and even with 3.8 GHz i7 it was just too slow for me.  For reference, I have two EVGA GTX 970 cards.  I think the pic linked took 5 or 6 hours.

Having to edit textures in Octane is a pain in the ass and the drawback, but the results I believe are worth it.

Warning!  Link has nudity.  Not my best, but here's one I re-visited in Octane.  Similar lighting.  Link to Poser version in description.

http://gator762.deviantart.com/art/Charmane-Play-Redux-523296678

Hi there 5-6 hour render with Octane is not the fastest there as I would expect from two 970,did you tried to render only with one card ? I know there is flaw with new GTX which seems are slower in Octane,but faster in OpenCL...

In therm of lighting in Poser,depends on scene and depends on settings etc.but is easy to achieve good results there and I would recommend to use Gamma Correction and Scenefixer for correcting materials,with Gamma Correction you don't need to use 50 lights 

Hope this helps

Thanks,Jura

Thanks Jura, I checked the benchmark demo they have and I'm at where I should be for speed.  It's a pretty big image (2560x1440), and a lot of specular materials.  Lots of things in a scene impact rendering speed.  I also used PMC for the renderer which is slower than Pathtracing, but I find better at removing fireflies.
As for getting good results out of Poser, I disagree about the ease of good results.  Even with all the tools you can get splotchy areas and lighting artifacts...  Again there are masters here at it, but I'm not one of them.  You will spend more time in Octane editing materials, but I find that I'm spending less time lighting.  And that's not to say I don't edit materials in Poser - buying Poser native stuff, sometimes I'm still tweaking materials trying to get better results.

I find for the hobbyist/casual user, it's easier to achieve better results with Octane.

I'm a convert now after buying it.  :)

Hi there

2560X1440 is pretty big agree,but still speed is not the fastest,I usually render in 1920X1200 which is OK,but in V-RAY I'm rendering in higher resolutions..Yes agree picture looks great and specular maps looks good too

Here are few renders which I've done in Poser Pro and I've used only 3 IDL light boxes(they're very similar to Reality boxes which I've re-created in Blender for this purpose),nothing else I've not used and BagginsBill envsphere too where I've attached modified HDRI spherical map

Pictures have some sort of nudity(its in lingerie)

Here is link on the Deviantart:

http://jura78.deviantart.com/

As you can see you can achieve good results in Poser Pro,I've used Gamma Correction and lighting artifacts or splotches,this depends,this you can get like with Poser or any other PBR,I've tried several renderers and with all you can have lots of issues

I've tried only demo of the Octane with which I've been pretty happy,but still I'm not sure if I would go this route,depends on new Octane 3 which will supports AMD OpenCL then I would go,but still I would and want to wait to see benchmarks on this subject,but new Reality 4.1 which will support new LuxRender 1.5 with which we can gain lots of speed,as per Paolo tests,looking like 1000px can be possible in 30mins which will speed up Reality immensely 

Editing materials this is with any renderer,I usually spend crazy times with editing materials in Poser or in 3DS MAX and try to find best possible material or best possible settings,its downfall of any renderer 

I'm too hobbyist and I'm not professional,I'm using most of the other renderers(V-RAY or Keyshot) which are student versions/EDU and 3DS MAX is too student version/EDU which is OK for my needs,I'm not professional and I will never be

Hope this helps there

Thanks,Jura

Yeah I think the renders look good, but looking closely on your latest Fiona IV you see splotchy shadows above and to the right of her head on the ceiling, and to the right on the wall.  Saw that in some others too.  Those for  example seem very hard to get rid of in Poser and would constantly bug me.  I'm not saying it's impossible, but for hobbyists I think the lighting is easier to do in Octane. Nice work Jura.  Only thing I'd say is that I'd recommend using depth of field.  I think it makes the renders look a little more realistic, as it happens with cameras and photographs.  On the down side, it does slow renders down!

Also, I like the background you used.  Is it a equirectangular on a sphere?  I'd like to grab a copy!  :)

Hi there Yes I know,I've put too close to ceiling IDL light and this has caused this,usually I'm not putting IDL light such close to ceiling as I'm using Point light where ceiling is and then I modify the shader for ceiling,those has been only test renders just show how is easy to make lights in Poser,splotches on her head yes this can be the problem,but mostly best way how to get rid those splotches on her head,is turn off the emitter and visible in raytracing on her hair and this will make lot difference and you will get rid of the splotches,yes is not good way to do it,but it works..

On walls you can modify shaders,usually I'm using 0.8(sometimes less,depends on lighting) on walls,but on those renders I've only used stock settings 1.0,lesson learned,those renders took only 10mins each to render on my PC..

Not sure if you are tried 3DS MAX and V-RAY if not then there is lighting much easier than in Octane or in Poser,only one thing which I'm struggling are specular and reflection on some scenes which I'm exporting from Poser 

Depth of field in Poser will slow down the renders that's correct,but in most SW this will slow down render process,in 3DS MAX I'm using bokeh or DoF mostly and this slows down renders to times which are pretty high for me(4-5 hours per render)

Background is from sIBL I think and its called Barcelona Rooftops and I think is sperical map which I've used,but I've post processed this(added bit more contrast and bit more sharpness etc )

Hope this helps

Thanks,Jura