I think some of you need to actually read the threads you're white knighting in. He specifically asked for feedback on those renders which is why I bothered posting it. 

I've been here since 2000. The Poser community shares deviantArt's tendency to want to praise peoples' efforts even though the demographic is older and we predate dA by at least 5 years. It's easy to drop a like on something just like it's easy to give social media snark; the middle ground is the one that makes people uneasy because it has to be tempered.  The scene has changed since V4 came out and the standard for saleable characters was "stands out" and/or "recognizably the work of X." We're more aware of what can be done with the mesh thanks to celebrity likenesses from fygomatic, MRL, MDD, Sabby and others – all of whom do a lot of their work in third party mesh editors. Bodies are dialed, but heads are sculpted. This isn't to say you can't do impressive work with only dials: the Snooki lookalike Angela has no custom deltas at all, but LiquidRust pushed those dials to the limits and overdialed some of the mouth expression dials to the point that the edges of the mouth crack a bit from what it took to make her signature pout. 

Textures are expected to show photographic levels of detail variation where a few moles and cosmetics sufficed before. Bump and displacement mapping, hi-res eyebrows…

And then you still have to contend with a market that might just prefer everything be Genesis/G2 because they grew up on a product that cost them nothing to install. 

It's an interesting time.