Crescent,
As adults, we may see Disney films as repetitive and dumbed down, unlike TitanAE, Final Fantasy and Shrek, but then Disney plays to their target audience, which is families with young children. Believe me, anyone with young children pretty much know how the Disney effect works, making names like Nemo, Sully and Stitch part of our daily lives. Except for maybe Brother Bear, not sure where you think that Disney hasn't done well. Lilo and STitch, Monsters Inc (released the same year as Shrek) and Finding Nemo have all had stellar box office and DVD sales. In fact, Monsters Inc (#4) and Nemo (#1) are the top sellers for this season, making Disney the projected big winner. People like light stories.

As to Shrek, it was more about revenge than just targetting Disney's tried and true formula. Not sure if you know the story there, but Jeff Katzenberg was head of Feature Animation and he, along with the Disney artists, created what was deemed the new age of animation with hits like Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, and others. Frank Wells (president of Walt Disney) hit a tree while skiing and died. Michael Eisner (CEO of WD) refused to make Katzenberg president. Eisner, instead took both positions and left Katzenberg high and dry. This angered him and he left with much fanfare and squabbling to join Dreamworks. Shrek, since it was already a Disney-esque fantasy provided an excellent venue for Katzenberg to direct that anger in the form of poking fun at everything he saw wrong with the Disney empire. In fact, although DreamWorks denies it, Lord Farquat was speculated to have been based on Eisner, who runs Disney much like a kingdom of which he is King. Except though for Shrek, their other offerings at DreamWorks (Antz, El Dorado, Spirit) have all been failures. Katzenberg and Disney were a great match, but apart, both lose.

Back on Topic:
I think that Poser and Shade will make an excellent combination and I sympathize with the Poser 5 people wanting software that works (I have the same problem with Vue Pro), but without an injection of cash and a foundation, all is lost, so getting cash flow from a company that understands the 3D medium has to be a good thing. Sure, there is always the typical press releases, but in the end, I think it can only be a good thing. Heck, before Poser 6 wasn't even thought of and now it's a serious consideration. I would hope they would go the Vue/Poser connection route and allow for the software to remain independant (thus cheaper upgrades), but connect together via import/export hooks. And Shade is a pretty awesome program, just look at the work of HobbyHopper sometime.

ShadowWind
Sometimes too much the Disney fan, though I loved Shrek. :)