To be fair, the ancient P4 stuff were 1990's era meshes that barely ran on the PCs of the time w/o blowing everything up. Joint Params were fast becoming old tech even back then, as the full-Pro world (Maya, 3DS Max, Lightwave, etc) shifted to rigged skeletons. And flexibility? Umm, LOL, nope. Not incredibly ugly, but not really too awful usable. If you were doing a dancing figure (stills - forget animation!), you had to make them dance like frickin' baptists, else the mesh would tear at the slightest provocation.

So yeah, today is way different. I promise, I'm way grateful for that.

Now as for OP?

I say find a figure that...

• isn't Genesis-based. (I'll explain in a few, so pick your jaws back up)
• folks use more than any other.
• that can be bought or licensed outright, and in perpetuity.
• has the flexibility to withstand foreseen upgrades and added functionality.
• has the flexibility to be made androgynous (I'm serious here - cheaper to maintain one mesh/rig setup than to maintain 2, 3, or four of them)
• has the flexibility to be made into a credible baby, all the way to a credible giant superhuman uber-muscled thingy, to an alien, to...

There are a couple figures out there - they need to find a good one and throw their weight behind it. Maybe hire a modeler or two to help things out a bit, and dedicate a developer towards a means to convert stuff made for other figures into the chosen figure (like what Crossdresser does, but all in one direction.)

Now yes, Renderosity, I mean that you don't want to do Genesis.

The licensing costs for distribution, even if DAZ were to want to grant one, would be crippling. DAZ isn't going to track Genesis' development to yours or to your wishes, because they no longer have to. Your long-term survival depends on doing your own thing as much as possible.

Oh, and two other things:

1. do a very generous store cut for merchants who make stuff for your favored figure - 75-25% in the merchant's favor. Maybe 80% for early-adopter merchants until you get a big enough stable of goodies.

2. do not flop over to a new figure every other week... give it maybe two years, unless the changes you propose do not break backwards compatibility with stuff made and sold for meshes up to, say, 2 years old.

There's tons more, but this should give an idea.