Back on the topic of Pauline product demand, a direct comparison to Genesis 3 is pretty essential imo. (If it is constructive in nature.)

Generally when launching a product, consideration of the market leader(s) is a key part in creating a product strategy that will be competitive or even lead to a product that will surpass the competitor's offerings, assessing what the market leaders are getting right but also what they're getting wrong and then building from that is crucial part of any product development.

SM did directly do this, which is obvious, in the fact that they have incorporated the facial rigging which is similar to the arguably market leading Genesis 3 figure from DAZ 3D. SM also tried to up the game a bit by making the figure base a merchant resource which does offer some advantage to the skilled users out there. And working to make the figure base easier to create for for the again the more skilled Poser users. Pauline is in essence is a good figure and has some clear advantages for Poser users being a native Poser figure in itself and is worth supporting especially for those that have a clear preference for Poser above other platforms.

From what I can see Pauline does face a few major hurdles if their is a real desire for it to progress to being a mainstream vendor supportable product, the majority of people make an assessment before buying into or broadly adopting a figure range as to the amount of support content that is available for that figure. Likewise vendors need to constantly assess their direction and what they are spending their time creating if they want to continue with this type of work in a professional capacity. This creates the dilemma for Pauline.

Current content creators for Pauline have a rather niche market IMO for their products, which may lead to a professional creator switching to a figure with a greater market share to increase their sales and the return on their work. As sales are currently likely to be lower than for other base figures that are available, making it more of a labour of love then a real professional base for content creation. Though Pauline's market share amongst product buyers and users is unlikely to increase without an increase in the amount of content available and greater support from content creators. This leaves content creators primarily creating loss leader type products that will see little financial return for themselves but increase the pool of support for Pauline and may increase sales of Poser and Pauline products in the longer term. This isn't an ideal situation for anyone who is creating on a full time basis as it is a very clearly defined risk. Creators would essentially be working on the premise that things may improve in the future but to expect lower sales in the mid to short term that would be possible when supporting other figures.

Another major issue that is both a benefit for Poser users but can be detrimental to content creators. Is the skilled up Poser groups that don't really purchase a great deal of items these days as they either have the skills to create for themselves or much prefer using Poser in a more mechanical method. This behaviour is very positive for those Poser users and is an asset to the Poser platform in itself, but can lead to a dry up in vendors and contributors that do create professionally for the native Poser figures, who do seem to be moving away to more fertile figure bases these days. Unfortunately the impact of this is that vendors are not just making that occasionally desirable and widely usable product that all Poser users would want, it generally means dropping all support for the figure completely and occasionally the platform itself. So in effect fewer products are made as the risk is too high for vendors. So you don't see those products that everyone wants, even those that create content for themselves or can up cycle older products would want to purchase. This is an unfortunate side effect in the strength of the DIY Poser culture and the maturity of a rather large portion of the user base which have purchased a wealth of content over the years and have some serious buyer fatigue from what I can tell. Unfortunately this can leave Poser being seen as little inaccessible for new users and the people that do want to see a strong market in content availability for its figures. These factors creates a very real dilemma for those that do really want to support Paul and Pauline in a professional capacity but find the risks or lack of returns seriously impedes this from happening.