The non DAZ figures are no good, because they are poorly made.
Yes.  I didn't want to be that blunt, but that is a major problem.  I am not going to speculate on what degree that has affected Dawn/Roxie/Rex vs the former having separate Daz and Poser versions and the latter being Poser-exclusive.  From the promo shots I have seen (not that Content Paradise promos are the greatest example of what a figure can and can't do), Roxie and Rex have some serious bend issues, and someone mentioned that they use a single texture for all body parts, which explains why their skin looks so low res.
While SM deserves no sympathy or defense for dropping the ball in the last 3 years in general, I am pretty sure I recall one of their reasons in the now-defunct CP forums for placing all the blame on DAZ, is that they were uncomfortable with Tri-ax being proprietary.  I don't know enough about IP rights and law to do anything more than speculate on what that would mean.  However, if SM couldn't figure out how to translate Tri-ax into Poser completely from the ground-up, then they would be incredibly restricted on how and where they could sell the product (I'm guessing they could only sell it on DAZ3D, which means that it would have to be an add-on rather than built into Poser ver. X)
Though I think I just remembered that they complained that DAZ shouldn't have found some way to make Poser weight-mapping work natively in DAZ instead of coming up with Tri-ax.  I have no idea if Poser weight-mapping is proprietary or not, or if it is, what its rules are.  (I know that there is a free weight-mapped version of Antonia)

Why does KFC keep their recipe a secret?
Apples to oranges.  3rd party cooks don't create "add-ons" for KFC's chicken, LOL.

Freebies, static? I downloaded so many freebies from DAZ 3D in the past three months to have lost count. I don't think I'll ever use most of that stuff, but I still grabbed it. How is that static?
I think you misunderstood.  They come out with new freebies every week, in addition to some that have been free for years (static) such as Emotiguy, and static ones which have been free for 1 year, such as Dagger Dreams and V4/M4 Basicwear.  Something more recent, are "weekly freebies", which often times are more like bimonthly or monthly.
My fear is that they will accept the industry standard a la Turbosquid and CGTrader which is to only provide static freebies.

And about "industry standard" prices? I have purchased a ton of stuff at between 60% to 80% off, and this includes Genesis 2 stuff, and I am not even in their PC membership program.
Yes, FOR NOW.  But it's only a matter of time before DAZ makes an announcement saying "We have been vastly successful with the industry standard over x years, and it is more profitable.  That is why we plan to slowly phase out hobbyist standards and prices over the next year/2 years.  We will still provide PC+ membership benefits, but these, too, will change to the industry standard.  Instead of products in a permanent PC+ category, we plan to shuffle PC+ prices around for most DAZ originals.  We will have occasional special holiday and seasonal sales when certain items are on sale for PC prices, which will be anywhere from 40 to 75% off"  Along with a bunch of prose as to why this is somehow more awesome.

Well unless the wheels fall of the cart or there is a quantum leap there is no reason not to expect the "industry standard" to not remain what is in common use in the CG industry.... which is what makes it a standard not because someone adopts it.
How many times have I heard that about something or other, only for the speaker/company to pull a 180 a year or 3 down the line?  Fact: nobody, and I mean NOBODY-- keeps their promises.  FACT: DAZ's disclaimers, ToU, etc. are pretty lengthy and explicit about how they can change anything and everything at a whim.

The solution is simple for you, spend a little time make a product submit to Daz, sign the necessary paperwork and you can access the HD tools with the same usage rights as any PA. Might take you a few days to get it sorted.
Perhaps someone does not WANT to become a DAZ PA.  Certainly that appears to be the case for plenty of PAs on Renderosity.  Other PAs, such as DInoraul and Boundless, are former DAZ PAs who decided to up and leave.  Dinoraul still has a store both here and at Content Paradise (though I have no idea if the latter is voluntary, due to CP being partially broken)

There is a lot of rumour milling in this one. Genesis into Poser didn't happen because SM flatly refused to collaborate with DAZ3D. If anything SM refused to collaborate out of some fear of becoming reliant on DAZ3D. But lets face reality is that not already the state of things to a degree, at least content wise? Licensing code is pretty common practice in software these days to be honest and the decision to not add triax was a business move from SM. DAZ3D would have prefered to see native Poser support for Triax figures not as an addon and I suspect very few strings would have been attached. SM need to drop their attitude of we SM have a platform "Poser" you (DAZ3D) make stuff to fit our platform. Maybe SM should try looking to the future and not clinging on to the past so hard. Maybe a simpler explanation for the scenario is SM didn't want to spend the money on developing Poser in this direction.  And the future will reveal a lot as to the reality of what happened here, as we will see how quickly Genesis 3 is brought into to Poser, as none of those propriety arguments hold true with adopting the DQ weight mapping system. If I hear one more misdirective comment about "tail waggin the dog" i think i will lose it :)

The KFC analogy is still relevant in this context. It means that it would be foolish for a business to give away all off it's secrets and lose their competitive advantage.

Your comments about DAZ3D Store pricing are merely speculative and somewhat inflammatory. In my experience the opposite is generally true in business, it's very rare that a company that is doing well financially, will turn around and rewrite their business plans in such a destructive fashion. This kind of behaviour usually comes from waning companies looking for a restructure. Falling revenues generally mean requirement to find immediate new markets, often abandoning the old in the process. When a business is doing well they aim to expand their markets but very rarely will they neglect their stable base for a new risk. Again the future will reveal the truth here.

A company can't renigg on what is Industry standard, the industry decides what is an industry standard. For example the RAW format is the goto format for photographers making RAW an "Industry standard". As the RAW format is the Industry Standard, including support in an application aimed at digital photographers is essential to squarely hit the market. Generally an industry standard is established when something is well supported and the most efficient at doing it's job.  A successful company needs to react to industry standards to stay relevant to its intended target industry. A company that guarantees that it will never changed is pretty much guaranteed to go out of business. The key to survival whether for a small mammal or a corporation is adaptability and evolution. To not change, is tantamount to courting failure. 

As far as not wanting to become a PA, your response here took the original comment out of context. The statement was made in relation to "Why can't I have Daz Studio inhouse content developments tools?" And the answer still is, you can, you just need to become a PA at Daz3D and make the same agreements based on usage of the tools. If a vendor decides that they want to sell elsewhere than that is their right and their own decision. But they can't expect to have inhouse Daz3d development tools as well as sell at competing brokerages.