This has been my stance of the little fortune I have spent on V4 - I convert what I need for Dawn when I need it. Over time I will have build enough contents to do what I want. Even if rare, I still use V4 for characters where Dawn lacks the character morphs, and for some kinds of clothing it's easier to use V4 than to convert it for Dawn. I guess the bottom line is that I will NEVER really delete V4 from my library because I have tons of contents for her that no other figure has. Converting clothing from one figure to another is no big deal for me in Poser, and it's a peace of mind knowing I can do it when I need it.
There is some merit when it is claimed that some people will only buy figures created by DAZ. If we look back to when DAZ released Aiko3 for FREE in 2005, it has instantly become the only figure the majority of people would use in their renders - it was really overnight. By then I was supporting MayaX's AnimeDoll. and the day after nobody wanted her anymore. Free figures like that was unheard of, and people went crazy over it. Not only AnimeDoll, but many other figures just died overnight just like that. There was no competing against free. Microsoft had tons of antitrust lawsuits for doing the same in the past, but DAZ went just fine with it, and soon after established the monopoly we still see nowadays. People were just fine with it, and even defended it feverishly, for as long as they got things for free.
As like a dozen figures died overnight in 2005, many CAs went out of business - to include myself for about 2 years. Everything I had in my Rendo store just wouldn't sell anymore, and I must admit they were selling pretty good until then. That's the wonders of a monopoly., and ethically speaking, it wasn't a pretty story.
All Mil3 figures used tons of JCMs in nearly all body parts. I could model clothing for her, but it wouldn't work when posed because I didn't know how JCMs worked back then, and DAZ would keep it a secret only shared among their own vendors. Therefore I went out of business until JCMs were removed in Mil4 figures, and that was V4. At that point creating contents for DAZ figures became "democratic" again, so I became a CA again (at Rendo). When I look at the ways things happened, I think it has a lot to do with why V4 became so popular and supported. Mil3 figures was more like a close circuit with the DAZ store vendors (by withholding information, which they still do nowadays), but anybody could create contents for V4.
That is not to say V4 was an instant hit - far from that. The release version was actually pretty bad, with horrible posing. Even the final V4.2 still had ugly shoulder bending, but other vendors sold fixing morphs for that, and everybody was happy. If not for Aiko3 having previously established a DAZ monopoly, V4 could as well have never become popular with that much of bad rigging and posing. It was the sequence of events that helped her to get away with it. If you look back to that time, there were other attempts to release better quality figures, like Renda and others, but once the DAZ monopoly was established, people didn't even look at it. I saw a lot of what we see with Dawn nowadays, with people criticizing non-DAZ figures without ever trying them first.
After DAZ took the decision to depart from Poser contents, the market got divided into factions that remain to this date. For Poser users, DAZ still holds the [psychological] monopoly, but they can't use their contents anymore. That made people angry, and they are still angry nowadays. To make things worse, some DAZ users look down at them with a smug. Every now and then I get someone like that posting malicious comments at my DA gallery, claiming that Poser is "dead" and claiming they don't even know why SMS still bothers to make new versions. When I tell them that I make and sell native DS contents, they go easy on me, but it's still sad that it happens.
This is why I was so happy to join HW3D when it showed up in 2013 - it was a chance to reconcile a broken market. I have learned DS and tried to please both sides of the fence, but it seems like DS users feel no need to come here, probably because the turn of events has favored them. Many told me they have no need for Dawn, and I understand why. The DAZ monopoly established overnight in 2005 still plays a role in the way they think. As it comes down, my DS to Poser product sales rate remains a little under 2-to-10, and perhaps there is no surprises there.
As I thought the conflict was between Poser and DS, it came as a shock to me that influential people at the SMS forums were flaming Dawn (and HW as a whole) as well. I knew the market was broken and divided, but I never thought it could get to this point. Now we have Poser vs Poser as well because SMS wants to push their stock figures, and there is yet another side project cooking up a new Poser figure as well. The fire was more widespread than I thought.
Coming from that, I am not sure if Chris trying to clear things out at the SMS forums would actually help, or throw more gasoline into the fire? Trying to establish a rational argument with the herd has never been much productive if you know what I mean. Still, I wish justice could be done. This other side project figure is coming out in March, and its taking advantage of false advertisement against HW to better place itself in the market. And by the looks of it, people bought the lies and are spreading them all over the place.
