Oh well, guess I have to chime in again....

Are 99.9% of the Poser gallery crap ? YES.

Is 99.9% of the content (Poses, lights, shaders, clothing and yes, even the beloved BASE FIGURES) sold in the Poserverse crap ? YES.

Do 99.9% of the Poser/Studio  users happily refuse to learn even the simplest basic rules of CGI because their "artistic minds" can't be bothered with such menial problems like falloff zones ? YES.

But, you know, I will start using Poser PRO's rudimentary  "Gamma correction" as soon as you can show me a perfectly photorealistic render made in Poser that looks perfectly photorealistic just because Poser's gamma correction was used.

Might be my old CRT monitor, but using my own WYSIWYG lightsets, the textures I use render exactly the same way as they look both in the OGL preview or when I look at them with Irfanview.

But,  because many, many "caucasian" skin textures look dark orange instead of, umm,...PINK, I usually modify them heavily using Photoshop or IrfanView before I use them.
And yes, that even includes gamma correction.
(Actually MOST textures are way too dark. I'm pretty sure these is caused by cheap, overly bright/washed out  LCD monitors)

And I will start using "actual 3d" highlights under the same conditions.
Poser simply isn't able to produce accurate specularity by itself, no matter how many shaders or fancy IBL-lightsets you throw at it.
Not for skin, and especially not for (transmapped) hair.

So, until Poser gets actually BETTER than Max and MAYA, I happily stick with photographs of actual skin and hair that contains actual highlights and not the sanitized, bland, photoshop edited textures many merchants produce these days.
(REAL, custom made specularity maps might be an option, but so far I hardly know any products using them)

Strange, as much as I dislike anything about the new 4th gen DAZ meshes, M4's texture looks A LOT better and realistic than M3's.
Exactly because it has those despised "burned in" highlights.

Finally:
It all starts with the human form.

If you want to build an accurate model of something, wether it's in real life or virtually, you have to get the SHAPE right.

If I build a model of a Sherman M4 tank, but I use the wrong kind of track or type of commanders cupola, I can have the best and most elaborate paint and weathering job in the world, my peers will still dismiss it as "crap" because it doesn't represent reality.

If you want realism, you need to be able to create an accurate shape.
And you can't re-create the human form without having full control over it's joints.

So, you can put as many fancy shaders as you want on a figure, if it is anatomically wrong, if it's joints are broken because the program you used can't handle joint deformations good enough, then you need better tools.

So again: As much as I DO NOT LIKE Studio and DAZ's general attitude, unless Poser 8 doesn't allow me FULL CONTROL over mesh deformations, It's useless for me.

I won't smear paint over a scale model to hide sloppy assembly with glue spilling out of the seams, and I won't waste my time smearing pixels over a mesh' broken limbs because a company refuses to use the latest available technology.

I'm not into 100% perfect Photorealism.
This is incredible hard to achive even with the professional tools.

But at least I want some reasonable accuracy for my virtual dollys without completely unecessary anatomical flaws.

Until recently, STUDIO was a joke. Really.
It was a "premade content viewer", nothing more.
But they really upped the ante with several of their latest plugins.
I would LOVE to see Poser taking the lead again.

But if they fall into the "let's make it barely good enough to sell it to the unwashed masses" trap again, it's bye bye from me.