Final Scorecard:

Dave-So gets mucho quatloos for staying on point, with a reasonable point, reasonably and courteously expressed.

That said, Questor gets the most quatloos for making the most valid points. (DAZ obviously can't commit to create the compatibility that CL promised and only CL can deliver.)

Anton gets points for trying to reach and service his customer, despite said customer starting this thread with an outrageously inflammatory heading. Considering that heading, Dan Farr also deserves points for keeping his cool in his own reply. (Perspective: The only P4/P5 issue involved here is perhaps that the rearrangement of the parameter dials made use of the product more confusing; and Cliff couldn't reach Anton to expand on the documentation as quickly as -- in an ideal world -- he might have wanted to. I'm not knocking Cliff, running into a few bad e-mail links on his way to Anton is the sort of thing that frustrates anybody, especially with the arthritis kicking up -- been there, too -- but no matter how you slice it, there's no way this tiny problem comes out DAZ/PLATINUM CLUB BAD FOR P5 USERS.
No . . . way.)

Pokeydots gets the quatloos for keeping perspective, as does SAMS3D for being perhaps the only person to make the point that the Platinum Club name dragged into this means only one thing: unbelievably slashed prices, a very important form of customer support and enhancement of the "Poser experience."

[More perspective: what are the incompatiblities, anyway?

a.) MAT poses. A biggie, to be sure. Of course, CL didn't invent MAT poses or offer them as a feature of P4, so they're not obligated to make them work under P5. However, it would be much easier to make them work again if the problem were tackled from CL's end, and it's really in their customer good-will interest to do so; if we would concentrate our efforts on politely requesting this enhancement, it's probably very doable. But if CL never tackles it, well, hell, MAT poses were a hack in the first place, someone will hack a new MAT pose maker that works in P5, and then no doubt lots of people who offer MAT poses in their products, DAZ and independents, will find it in their interests to offer P5 updates. Somebody'll do it, but you can hit your high chair with a spoon all you like, it won't happen overnight.

b.) The Face Room. Since I'm not out to bash CL, I won't say Big Deal. But notice that Morph Putty does work on Victoria's face morphs; it's the same thing as the Face Shaping Tool, it's just not in the Face Room. It's nothing to write home about, IMHO, but neither is the Face Shaping Tool. Yes, the photo thing doesn't work with Victoria and Mike, and that's because CL didn't feel like spending a hundred grand to accommodate a product they don't make and won't profit from, and DAZ didn't feel like spending a hundred grand to add a new feature to a product that was already worth what they were charging for it. When you consider that most products in the economy have a profit margin of 1-10 per cent -- and usually closer to 1 -- can you blame CL or DAZ for thinking that they probably aren't going to get the millions of bucks in extra orders it would take to justify this expenditure? Or suspecting that the crybabies who flame them would not stand for the price hike necessary to cover it? I don't. And -- calming back down into Perspective mode -- it's not as if the photo thing works all that well even for Don and Judy.

Summary: the only true non-trivial compatibility issue (Face Room is a new feature) is the transparency thing on MAT files. It will probably be addressed very soon by the same CR2-hackers who invented MAT poses in the first place. Is all DAZ stuff -- any DAZ stuff --- useless now and DAZ refusing to do anything about it? NAAAH. Has CL made all pre-5 stuff useless and refused to do anything about it? NAAAAH. That being the case, is there any reason for hysterical ranting against both companies? NAAAAAAAAH.]

Final score, then:

Questor -- Most Quatloos (winner)
Dave-So -- Mucho Quatloos (loyal opposition)
Anton, Dan Farr, pokeydots, SAMS3D -- (honorable mentions)

Submitted for your approval by the referee,
Bill