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I doubt it. Poser can already do better renders than 90% of the ones in the galleries. But just because Poser can do better, doesn't mean that people's renders will improve. Improving a render takes some work on the part of the user and a lot of people either don't know how or don't want to learn how to do it. The most common failing of the average render is lighting. Most people just don't understand how to do decent lighting, and nothing Poser adds will change that. (For example IBL hasn't improved the general standard of renders very much, although in theory it should have).

Oh yes.

Now, because of what I do for my own stuff, I'm often on the side of the people who consider speed perhaps more important than accuracy or realism for some situations (such as doing a webcomic).  I can buy that, and in my own experience it's true.

However, I've found that some of the image producers get into a rut: they've found one thing that works and they'll be damned if they'll change it, even through multiple software updates.  I can point to several artists whose renders look exactly the same (and not in the "wow, that's totally realistic way!" even though I know they've upgraded.

Now, it's one thing if they're doing it to maintain a specific style, but if they're doing it just because that's what they needed to do then to get a good quality/speed ratio, they really don't have a good excuse why they're doing the same thing now when a bit of experimentation (or simply reading some of the discussions on this site and others) could allow them to improve quality and still get good output times.