There is a lot of truth in the things you talk about. I joined this forum a year and a half ago. I had no idea what DAZ was and how it worked. People were discussing the exact proportions and what model mixes Dr.Pink used for the game characters. Only the pro's you mentioned were uploading quality renders.
I think the turning point came when
Night Hacker started sharing his character assets from the game. This gave many fans with amateur 3d visualization skills(like me
) the opportunity to be able to create decent stuff. But you're very right that working with DAZ requires a hell of a lot of time in addition to skill. Time that can be used for extra income or family, friends, sports etc. I myself also have a family and spend much less time on creating new renders.
At the end of the day if you are a professional you will look to profit from your skills and develop. That's why I mentioned in the post to
lockhear 's last series of pieces that I can't imagine the huge amount of time he spent creating them. Realistically he's not going to gain anything from it, and I'm guessing he's only doing it because it gives him pleasure (as it does most posters in this thread)
And really, after a certain amount of time (especially with the long process of creating each new DIK episode) you start to get bored of the same characters and renders.