I still use Poser. I'm in Poser Pro 2014 now, and I'm using Carrara 8.1 Pro. Recently, I've been creating original figures in Silo, rigging in Poser and saving to the library, then bringing the figure into Carrara for dynamic hair and whatever else I need.

Carrara is just plain faster for me for setting up scenes and rendering. And the shader system in Carrara is much easier to navigate than Poser's. They both now have the use of luxrender and with postwork you can't tell which software was used anyway.

As far as .pz3 files opening in Carrara, I think they still do. I haven't actually opened one in Carrara in ages. I remember not liking how the lights came in, but I usually rework them anyway. I usually just work with individual figures saved to the Poser library.

If it's really important, I'd be glad to take one of my Poser scenes from PP 2014 and bring it into Carrara and let you know. Carrara is churning out a set of renders for me right now with tons of dynamic hair that will take at least the rest of the day.