I started with Poser 3, in a nice big shiny cardboard box. At that time, my PC has about the same power as the cardboard box had.

But it wasn't until Poser 6 and a better PC that I really started using it. Or rather, wrestling with it.

1. The UI was and is great, but render times were the big problem back then. I should have spent more time learning how to make them a bit faster for my puny PC, rather than copying a render preset from someone else and hoping for the best. But that's all in the past now. It's fast, on a Xeon workstation that would have cost me $11,000 in 2010 - but which could be had for peanuts refurbished in 2019.

2. Sketch. This is related to the render times. I ignored this render engine for years, because I didn't know how to stop it from rendering Sketch to the whole scene. Very slow and icky. But once you know how to stop it from also rendering into the background, and can break free of the stock presets, then it's an amazing tool. Also, it can be made really fast. Like, 10 seconds fast at 1,800px.

3. Also for Sketch rendering. It took me a long time to figure out that the coverage and presets are render-size dependent. Create a custom preset for 1,800px, it's not going to work as intended at 3,600px. When you save a custom preset you need to name it with the settings (e.g. on_smooth_shaded_bw_comicbook_1800px)

4. It took me a very long time to get to a Firefly "line-art only" render preset that cured "the speckles" problem. Solution: use a script to auto-disconnect all the bump maps. 98% of the speckles are then gone, and you have a line render you can then use with Photoshop filters to make it look more hand-drawn.

5. The need to systematically build a Library, from base figures and vital morph packs upward. So that the vital required items are all there, so you're not such when someone produces a product that needs X base + Y figure + Z base-morphs + the ABC morphs and a texture from CBA. Scattergun collecting can come later. Build the basic 'matrix' of base figures, morphs and must have 'core content' first, and save a lot of time later.

6. Related to to this is the need to grab stuff when you see it, as content and scripts become unavailable over time but often we can still run the software that they require (e.g. Poser 2014) alongside P11 / P13. or, you realise that K4 can actually be turned into a great series of goblins and imps, but that the stuff needed to do that was made decades ago and is hard to find or even gone. Freebies and 'fits' on small sites are also especially prone to vanish.

7. I never knew until very recently that you can invoke a script with a custom keyboard shortcut. Simply rename the script my-amazing-script###Alt+Z.py and make sure it's in the main ScriptsMenu folder.

8. OpenGL has a hard limit on the number of Preview lights in a scene, with the number depending on the power of your PC.  Also, in a fresh install of Poser you need to go into Preferences, to prevent a light preset adding the lights to the existing set (rather than replacing the current lights). It's still the default Poser behaviour that lights just accumulate in the preview scene as you try out new light presets. Not a great experience for new users.

9. XA Toolbar and Scene Toy are a vital add-ons for Poser 11. I don't think I realised this until P11, especially XA.

10. Vue took a long time to become viable for me, in terms of its usability and speed. Vue actually works very easily with Poser, still does, and has exports that effectively replace the old PoserFusion exporters.

11. Backup and port over properly when moving to a new version of Poser. Poser keeps stuff all over the place on your PC. This is especially important when moving to a new PC, as otherwise stuff like custom render presets will be lost.

12. Python is fun. Sometimes.

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Learn the Secrets of Poser 11 and Line-art Filters.