I**'ve been using Poser since P4 (currently using P6).  I've played a little with Vue, 3DS Max, and am pretty good with Rhino.  Seeing the price on Carrera 6 got me thinking about giving it a try. **

Is it worth it?
Yes, it is.  I won't touch Vue or anything else for that matter when it comes to rendering PZ3 figures and artwork these days.  You can get dang near any kind of result with jit with the right settings and content.  (heck, I've even gotten realistic rain and snow within it by playing around with the multi-surface replicator.

Is the rendering engine that much better than Firefly?
What used to take 15 hours in Firefly (Or wouldn't work at all) takes 15 minutes.  The farthest I have pushed Carrara and still had it work was with a Don, a Judy, A V3, an M3, a freebie Robot, an S3, and the BRC Cloisters scene from DAZ and had it render fine (did this on a 2gig of RAM machine BTW) and had things render just fine.  Firefly would have rolled over and died...and maybe occasionally twitched.

is the interface pretty user friendly?
If you can figure out Bryce and Poser, you can figure out this.

**  Will it wash and darn my old socks for me?
**Not as is, but there is probably a plugin out there that will get it done ;)

Requiem "...angels fall from grace, and sometimes heroes die."
Tunnelrunners --The Complete Archive