So I'm getting more into Daz here, because I thought, given my research so far, that it would be easier to get up and going with creating a few of my own models with it than it would with Blender.

However, I've just discovered these "plugins" such as the "content creator" which cost money.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Daz doesn't have any functionalities that blender lacks. Except, now that I see that Daz doesn't include all of its functionality automatically, I can't help but wondering, why should I pay to download all these extra plugins, just to get it up to par functionality wise as a program available for free?

DAZ Studio was/is intended as a scene composition and render application, and never meant to replace a modeling suite (maybe this fundamental is where some misunderstandings may lie). Additional plug-ins are purchased by people that would find them handy, but that's all over-and-above the original function of DAZ Studio.

But as far as "content creator toolkit" is concerned, it comes free with DAZ Studio Pro, which is also free... So you need to make stuff in the modelling/texturing software of your choice and then pose and render in DAZ Studio.

The tools to rig models are built in to Studio but is not a modeling program

OK! Wow, it's been SO hard getting to the bottom of this! Thanks!

So really, the question is choosing between Daz, Poser, or iclone, it's not really sensible to include programs like blender or maya in that question. Is that right?

Realistically you can't build models in DAZ. While you can do animation with DAZ, it lacks a lot of tools Blender has. Blender includes every thing you need to make animations, with the exception of good 2D image editing. DAZ is much less complex. With DAZ you aren't starting with nothing and don't have to build every thing from scratch. Sure there are some models out for Blender, but not as many and they aren't as adjustable as the DAZ ones.

It gets down to this, if you want to build models, you don't want DAZ. If you want a finished image in much, much, much less time DAZ will do it. As long as you can live with the adjustments that were built into the models DAZ is hugely faster and easier. Really there is no reason to make a choice between them, since they are both free:) A lot is about time. Look at some of the shorts done by the Blender foundation, they took huge amounts of time and resources to make. DAZ provides you with a lot of pre-done stuff that is easy to adjust, within limits.

Ideally Blender, or Wings3d (both are free) to model. You can render in Blender (lots of free plugins there as well as a few paid ones) and use either to create content for Daz Studio or Poser. My one issue with Daz Studio is some paid plugins don't get updated to current versions so it's a kind of buy with chances of it not working with future versions. I suspect the same might be true of the Blender plugins but I haven't seen that yet myself so I can't speak for that....

There is a lot of free created content for Daz Studio (and Poser) which can be used with either suite. Much of it can be imported to Blender with almost no problems (you might have to look at forums for instructions).