"It is ashame that there is no effort to standardize and cross integrate 3D applications for easier use" 

That seems to be happening gradually with Collada though I think shaders may always be a problem unless everyone were perhaps to adopt Renderman. 

I think that each application should stick to its strengths. It takes resources for a company to develop uniformly high quality in every area and something usually suffers. Using 3rd party plugins has advantages but then you have the problem of plugins being late to update compatibility with new versions of the application.

It makes sense for apps like Poser and Daz Studio to have functionality for doing some degree of modification of the figure meshes, those are the main Raison d'être of those programs to begin with. True, you may place those figures in a room in a house but that does not IMO, call for (as an example) adding CAD functionality to the program. 

Some new features like hair and cloth make sense because they enhance the core purpose, rendering human figures and even at that they are probably underutilized. Rather than looking at modeling or fluid simulation or landscape generation etc., I'd think that soft body dynamics would be a much more relevant addition to a human figure program.

It also occurs to me, for modeling in particular, that as people are always pointing out, which one 'clicks' for you is a highly individual thing. The wealth of free and commercial modelers available lets everyone find their own. Add a modeler to the program means it would probably be one that only appealed to a fraction of the users who actually model (a minority in itself). 

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken