I think the average person is becoming much more sophisticated in what they can do with Poser and what they want to do with Poser. The community has helped Poser grow to the point where it is almost so useful it is indispensable as a product for 3D shops.

Almost.

But they need to take that next step. Some things absolutely have to change. Poser is good... but it's abilities are not completely unique - what is currently unique is the cost of the props/items.

The reality is - I can use all this stuff in Max pretty much directly. it would be fairly easy (if somewhat expensive) to purchase a human for Max and map her to take Vicki textures. Set up the joints in Character studio and I am all set - event he morphs are possible. Poser is a nice application for experimentation - but if it continues to fall short when the time comes to use this stuff then they will find that the high end companies/communities respond and this whole market (in the high end) for Poser goes away.

1. As I was thinking about it... I realized that for this purpose there is really no good reason to upgrade Poser's rendering engine... I am never really going to use it for professional work anyway ... other things are more useful (even as a higher priced upgrade)...
2. The pro-pack plug-in for Max (and others) should give us access to Poser's character morph dials at the very least. This would let me essentially stay in Max much, much longer - I could animate the smile and blinks and so on without leaving that environment.
3. Much, much better clothing conformation handling. Even if it adds time - even if it ads a lot of time there is simply no reason to have to hand tweak and edit the clothing so much in Poser. The program should avoid poke-through and that would allow the clothing to fit much, much better. One of the reason so much clothing looks so ... bulky? now is to try and avoid this.
4. A "mesh smooth" system built into Poser. It would be a real problem to try and get everyone to move to higher rez poser figures all at once... so Poser itself should have the option to divide the mesh and smooth the vertices - this would allow us to use all the current geometry and morphs but get much better output.
5. Rework the join deformation system. You might need ti have it only work with characters built for it (additional joint params) but there is no reason for all the destruction ad crimping of the mesh when limbs bend. Posing figures is what poser DOES... and it doesn't actually do that good a job.  !Fix it!.
6. Daz needs to bring out higher rez versions of Vicki2 and Mike2. They should be able to wear the old cloths and so on but they need to be natively higher res - but LOOK like Vicki2 and Mike2... with all the morphs we are used to and the shape that already fits our clothing and textures.
7. Poser should let me export my poser scene as a boned, IK linked character studio figure. I could use Poser to dress up and morph the character, then pose her native in max using the superior animation tools of the higher end system.

In short, the frustrations with Poser (and I love the program) have had me looking at the options... and Poser isn;t really goign to make inroads int he bigger markets unless it grows up some more. The higher end (and not millions of dollars, Max/Char studio and a plug in or two) give us IK, bones, animatable hair that actually flexes correctly, collision detection (cloths and hair will NOT have poke through) and so on.

It IS possible to give Poser a serious power place in mid to high end shops (we are a low/mid range shop and even we need it to do more) and still keep it easy to use and not alienate the community.