Hi Ravencore,
whew, it's a long read, but I understand where you are coming from.
After I officially started using DS, I switched the posing method from wearable presets (device parented to figure, for example exam table being parented to G8) to manual parenting of G8 figures to a logical part of the exam table then applying the supplied poses. This enables you to keep your character in position while you rotate a part of the exam table. It also allows you to modify textures on the exam table without them being blown out of the scene when want to move on to the next pose. Prior to my official move to DS, this was out of my control.
As for easypose and tentacle bending, I had a lot of pros/cons discussions with several users of my products and the 'vast' majority said it was too difficult to try and pose a tentacle or tool hose from the source (whatever the tentacle or hose was attached to) toward the intended character/victim. They said it was an endless and painful process of moving the first node back and forth to get the last node (on the victims end) in position then further difficult to fine tune the connection between the last segments and victim. It was easier for them to place the business end of the tentacle or hose into position on the victim/character then pose the hose back toward the source such as a hose port or creatures tentacle hole. ( I know, my choice of words here is comical). This is why it seems like things are backwards from normal mechanical function, but it's been proven easier for most users, which is why I stick with it. This method comes into dispute mostly with people who do animations, and those people are far fewer than the average user. My regret with DS is that I can't display the main easypose master bending nodes in wireframe in preview mode like I can in Poser. This made it easier to find the nodes. I haven't figured out a solution to this yet and Daz was less than helpful.
What I try to keep in mind is what the average or most users will do. I have kind of categorized users into groups:
1. Novice users who want to open the box, apply the supplied pose with no modifications to pose or device and move on to another product. Boom, they are done.
2. Moderate/Experienced users who want to open the box, apply the supplied poses, do more progressive renders, for example, a comic scene where action progresses and they modify the position of the device and change expressions on the character then move onto the next pose and do the same. These users also a little more advanced and do kit bashing, texture manipulations, scene setups and more attention is paid to lighting and body expressions.
3. Very advanced users who do animations and usually export the figures into other programs such as unreal, max, blender, zbrush or more to do more advanced atmospheres, rigging etc.
Group 2 is my focus group as that's the level of most of my customer base. That's why I try to add as many morphs to most parts of my figures so you can fine tune and adjust poses and fits. I can't, nor can most vendors, anticipate the needs of all users, so we kind of aim in the middle and have a certain expectation that most users can adjust and compensate, with some level of work perhaps, to get the product into it's final position for a render.
Water Works 2 was my last collaboration with Freeone so all products since Devious Device 06 have been done by me and my methodology/ texture interpretation is a little different from his methods. I do parenting of character to device rather then wearable preset. I still do easypose hose/tentacles bending from character/victim back toward source device, that will always be the case unless I get an overwhelming response from users that they prefer the other direction, and so far I haven't had any feedback since I switched the directions way back in the day.
I hope this address some of the logic and reasoning for the way things are done. I appreciate your feedback because it is very helpful. For me, it's always kind of been "no news is good news" and I keep plodding on the same direction. If I get more feedback from more users about the easypose bending, I'll see what I can do to accommodate.
Length Morph on the LW base node on probe 3 lengthens the part "into" the body of the probe, so it's not apparent. You move and position the part away from the body of the probe (which moves all the other attached parts with it so you don't have to reposition those if the length morph worked the other direction) then apply the length morph as needed. Took me a long minute to remember that's how it worked, lol.
Cheers,
Davo