After some time of working and rendering the major Poser base figures, I found that V3 and Miki are best female base figures to morph with, while oddly enough, M2 remains the best male base figure to me.

Just to share a thought for fun, my prefered Poser male bases, in ranking order, are:

#1. M2   . . .  #2. David3   . . .   #3. P6 James   . . .   #4. Koji  . . .  #5. ApoloMaximus  . . .  #5. M3 (tied)  . . .   #6. P5 Don  . . .  

my prefered Poser female bases, in ranking order, are:

#1. V3  . . .  #2. Miki  . . .  #3. Stephanie 3 Petite  . . .   #4. P5 Judy  . . .   #5. P6 Jessi  . . .   #6. V2

Aiko3, Hiro, Terai Yuki2, and Freak are of some other types of characters (anime and superhuman / freak style), so I'm not rating them here.

For male bases, my reason of favoring M2 and disliking M3 :   1) of all the bases, M2's animation appears most natural, most close to nomal human actions ( I animated a simple walk/stride sequence with all the bases, to be specific). . .  2) although M2 has much fewer morph channels, I found that I can actually create MORE different but natural/non-alien, non-monster looks of male with M2 than with M3 or David; M3 does a great job in creating monsters or alien characters, but just take a look at the Renderosity Gallery postings, most "handsome" types created  with M3 all look similar and are easily recognizable (as from M3 base) . . .     3) M3 looks fine with clothes on, but in scenes featuring shirtless male, M3 looks very inorganic in his shoulder and armpit areas.   It annoys me that I can't fix the weird-looking area in Poser, and have to post work a lot to make him look right.  Plus, in most render situations, I don't need the excessive amount of M3's morph channels, which cause the big size of the saved file .

V3 has the same file size issue, but she looks as natural as any other Poser female bases, hence her extensive morph channels become a plus to me as they can be used to create more variety of characters (even though I rarely used more than one fifth of the morphs).  V3 appears too tall to me, but her height can easily be changed right in Poser.   I set V3's head size to 108%, abdomen's X-scale 85%, Y-scale 80%,and I got my kind of ideal woman body.

That's my thought on the Poser figure bases.   However, I haven't worked a lot with David, and maybe with David's head morphs one can create many different looks of natural male, too (even though D3 faces created by different artists all look similar in Renderosity Gallery postings as well).

Anyway,  I wonder what's your ranking of them?

.

I forgot to put in the V3Male morphs.  It's not a base figure, but in creating natural looking male characters, V3Male morphs does a better job than M3 (to me).

Well you have LOTS of figures!!

For me it's M3 followed by James and then M2 with Don coming nowhere!!  I don't have the others.

Females: V3, then Jessie, P4 female, Judy    I don't have any others.

Here's my list...

Males:   #1. ApolloMaximus ...   #2. M3 ...   #3. Freak ...   #4. M2 ...   #5. David3

Females:  #1. Victoria 3 ...   #2. Stephanie 3 Petite ...   #3. Victoria 2 ...   #4. Jessi ...   #5. Aiko 3

Oops forgot Aiko3 and Eroko and Sara and DinaV  

David, M3, James, Apollo, M3Revitalised, M2, Clark, Dork (in various versions), Don

Female? I mostly use V3 when I have to use a female at all. I like Miki  too. And V2 and SP3.

I like Hiro and Aiko as well, but as you say they're for another type of renders. Freak can be useful though, with the hands smaller.

I like M3 for the male characters because there are so many great textures and characters out there for him, but not enough clothes! V3 for the same reason, but she has lots of clothes. I think the Maya Doll is cute, but nothing has been done with her. Too bad.

well, all I have is M and V3..so a lot of this would have to be speculative..;)
Actually, I use Mike and Vickie RR a lot, because I don't have access to many of the INJ/REM items , and I guess Male figures will be a problem; I've got HIM, Maya Dude, and Dork (which I've used only in my 1st pic all those years ago..;),

Females are V1RR, V3, Maya Doll, HER, and that's about it

On the other hand, I use various critters quite a bit..;) (Sixus, Blacksmith, etc)

You mean the ones I like to morph with?

The basic poser people got deleted as soon as the program was installed. Their room was more wlcome then their company :)

Favorite female is SP3 believe it or not. Then V3.  I have Mil PT, V2,Miki, Jessie, Laura, Maddie & TY2, and Aiko  installed, but have never tried anything with them.

Males--V3Male all the way! Easiest to work with and the results are always good. Then M3 and M3 RR. I've got M2, Luke, Matt, James and Koji but don't like them enough to bother.  I never could get the hang of Apollo so I unistalled him.Hiro -I'm still trying to make something I like.

Opened David's morphs up once. Closed it down and ran crying to my friend Tivao to make one for me :)

Thank y'all for sharing your thoughts.

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No female figure is better than Eve 4 by Traveler, except possibly Evelyn by Stahlratte.  Both  have a classical statuesque beauty, full functioning genitals, and traffic reflective eyes.  Everything else is just 'Second Best!'
David P. Hoadley

Attached Link: My usual way of telling "Hiro can look quite realistic too" :D

Females: Aiko, Kona, Furrette, Sara, MD, Posette.

Males: Hiro, M3, Dork, Furraldo, Nybras.

The only DAZ figures I have morphpacks for are Aiko (A3 Morphs & Maps) and Hiro (all the morphs Hiro comes with and gorgeous Hitoro morphpack by Capsces), so I work mainly with them - at those rare times I bother myself with rendering humans that is. V3 was uninstalled very quickly, M3 still sits in my Runtime only because of Orc freebie character set. Dork is fine when morphed into something monstrous, or as a base for funny figures (like Ninja Turtles). Maya Doll makes cute Asian girls, a bit on toony side too but still more resembling human than toon. Plus, she has tons of freebie clothes. F& F duo makes sweet fantasy creatures, and Kona is absolutely anime-ish figure but so incredibly cute one. And Nybras... well, everybody needs a good demon every now and then...

My fav figure ever is not even humanoid... It's House Mousie, but I guess that doesn't count here :D

Attached Link: FREE DOWNLOAD!!! Evelyn is Back!

shrug You know, I do use sometimes Posette and some of her clones (mostly because of fun clothing people used to make for her), but Evelyn is half based on V2, and this is the figure I don't have (hence I cannot decode her) :)

AW SHUCKS!!! (sigh) Missed opportunities, the story of my life. (double sigh)
DPH

MALE: 1. Apollo....2. M3....3. James....4. David....5. M2....6. Don....7. Project Human Male

FEMALE: 1. Elle...2. Farris....3. Miki....4. V3....5. Project Human Female....6. Jessi....7. Eroko

male figures

1. d3
2. hiro
3. james
4. m2
5. m3
6. everyone else

female figures

1. miki & aiko
2. v3 (due to add-on morphs and support) 
3. posette based figures
4. jessi
5. v2
6. everyone else

i'm really looking forward to the g2 figures in general.

Males: Mike2. His face looks a bit  comicbooky (But I like that) and his morphs are great. Second is M3 but I dislike his jaw. David is too bloody short .
Females: Sp3 is awesome, except  for her head. You need a bloody chainsaw to morph her face. I mean I like her face but it's difficult to make her look anything other than Stephanie. Second is Vicky3 but her body is a bit too "perfect" in a way. Aiko is cute and bends well but she is too cute. Ack >_<!

Some words on ApolloMaximus:

 ApolloMaximus is a nice male base, and has great potential to become truly the best Poser male base figure with his age morph capacity.  This great age variety morph feature will truly stand out when we see him change ages, growing from a toddler to a weatherd old man in a single animation sequence.  

However, I found that AM did not work well with Poser's Walk Designer, which in the Poser animation realm is a big plus feature in that it greatly shortens the time spent in designing walk animations.   (Correct me if AM has updates already to make him compatible with WalkDesigner.)

For artwork render purpose, I'd suggest that the creator or other capable 3rd party merchants build extra morph channels that can fine-tune his face.   AM looks fine, but the default figure's face has a chubby "under-chin" (the area between chin and neck, is there a word for it?) that's hard to modify.  That, plus his jaws, make most of AM's faces morphed by different artists look similar and easily recognizable as from the AM base.   With a few exceptions, while most M3 faces look feminine, most AM faces look very macho (Arnold or Sylvester type).  

Anyhow, I look forward to the updates and/or plug-ins that expand AM's face morph targets.  Again, AM has the greatest potential to become the best overall Poser male base figure.

.

Male: 1: David.  2: M3.  3: V3Male.  4: Apollo.  5: James.  6: M2.  7: Hiro.  8: Freak.

Female: I only use V3.