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The way YCHs are handled right now is fucked, and here's why
10 years ago
Meet Joe. Joe is your average guy who has an incredible propensity to conceptualize fantastic scenes and stories, but lacks the talent and willpower to share that on paper with the world.
Meet Jane. Jane is your average girl that also has an incredible propensity to conceptualize fantastic scenes and stories, but lacks the talent and willpower to share that on paper with the world.
Now meet Alex. Alex is a really talented artist who churns out YCHs one after the other in between personal art.
Many people love Alex's art and see's their potential and talent, but anyone with an original thought that find Alex's style perfect for it are essentially kept from ever seeing it realized by Alex. Alex will post a YCH and generally speaking, Jane is the first person to arrive at that posting and claim the slot will see her characters realized. The problem with this though is that Joe absolutely loves the YCH and really wants to see his own characters there too. Alex won't draw Joe's characters in that pose though because Jane got to it first. Joe also cannot go to another artist and ask them to draw their characters in that pose either because it would be "copycatting".
I am absolutely confused how a pose can essentially become copyrighted though some sort of moral or ethical standard. A pose is hardly specific enough to say, "no too bad, I already drew that pose and I will never do it again." If a commissioner goes to an artist, and they work together to create a unique one of a kind piece of art, and someone has nearly the same exact thing done for their character by the same or different artist, that would be unethical. However, when an artist posts a pose idea and a lot of people like it, it's also unethical to ostracize another person that takes a pretty cookie-cutter concept and has their own character done in it because they also really liked it.
If an artist wants to make YCHs exclusive, it should be put up to an auction and a hell of a lot more money, time, and effort should be being put into it to make it just as individually unique as any collaborative commission that could have otherwise come out of it.
Is that Alex's right to not take standard commissions and just keep doing personal art, YCHs, and YCH auctions? Absolutely; it doesn't challenge the artist's talents, it doesn't help grow their audiences any faster, and the way these are currently handled alienates too many people, creating negative attitudes.
If I see a pose I like, the artist denies multiple characters for that pose, and the only real unique thing coming out of it is the pose, then you can be damn sure I'm going to have that done for my character as well; I won't be bound by some unspoken rule that I can't also use that pose. There is nothing unethical or disrespectful about using a particular positioning of a body for multiple people.
I applaud
fatalsyndrome and 
rindeadsong for recently doing this with one of their YCHs; they posted one and took payments for all the people that wanted to participate and be one of the poses in the YCH offer. The part that may surprise some people is that nobody felt cheated and everyone left happy with their own art.
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16125376/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16081012/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16249985/
You should try it sometime.
Meet Jane. Jane is your average girl that also has an incredible propensity to conceptualize fantastic scenes and stories, but lacks the talent and willpower to share that on paper with the world.
Now meet Alex. Alex is a really talented artist who churns out YCHs one after the other in between personal art.
Many people love Alex's art and see's their potential and talent, but anyone with an original thought that find Alex's style perfect for it are essentially kept from ever seeing it realized by Alex. Alex will post a YCH and generally speaking, Jane is the first person to arrive at that posting and claim the slot will see her characters realized. The problem with this though is that Joe absolutely loves the YCH and really wants to see his own characters there too. Alex won't draw Joe's characters in that pose though because Jane got to it first. Joe also cannot go to another artist and ask them to draw their characters in that pose either because it would be "copycatting".
I am absolutely confused how a pose can essentially become copyrighted though some sort of moral or ethical standard. A pose is hardly specific enough to say, "no too bad, I already drew that pose and I will never do it again." If a commissioner goes to an artist, and they work together to create a unique one of a kind piece of art, and someone has nearly the same exact thing done for their character by the same or different artist, that would be unethical. However, when an artist posts a pose idea and a lot of people like it, it's also unethical to ostracize another person that takes a pretty cookie-cutter concept and has their own character done in it because they also really liked it.
If an artist wants to make YCHs exclusive, it should be put up to an auction and a hell of a lot more money, time, and effort should be being put into it to make it just as individually unique as any collaborative commission that could have otherwise come out of it.
Is that Alex's right to not take standard commissions and just keep doing personal art, YCHs, and YCH auctions? Absolutely; it doesn't challenge the artist's talents, it doesn't help grow their audiences any faster, and the way these are currently handled alienates too many people, creating negative attitudes.
If I see a pose I like, the artist denies multiple characters for that pose, and the only real unique thing coming out of it is the pose, then you can be damn sure I'm going to have that done for my character as well; I won't be bound by some unspoken rule that I can't also use that pose. There is nothing unethical or disrespectful about using a particular positioning of a body for multiple people.
I applaud
fatalsyndrome and 
rindeadsong for recently doing this with one of their YCHs; they posted one and took payments for all the people that wanted to participate and be one of the poses in the YCH offer. The part that may surprise some people is that nobody felt cheated and everyone left happy with their own art. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16125376/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16081012/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16249985/
You should try it sometime.
it's that, if an artist does a YCH that you want and it gets claimed before you can grab it, it's SO rude to default to another artist to go ask them to draw the same thing basically.
if I djd a YCH and someone wanted a similar pose or idea (which has happened) I would be glad to do it for them.
personally, however, I HATE when artists do YCH images where anyone who buys can get that exact same pose because they upload 20 different images of what is literally the exact same thing in the exact same pose. it doesn't inspire any sort of originality or creativity in the slightest
I think you're taking a simple concept and over complicating it personally. have you ever even asked an artist if they would do a similar pose for you?
The problem is that if an artist does a YCH and it get's claimed -- that is the problem, this idea of "claiming" a pose. If I can capture a particular positioning of the body with a camera, then why the hell can't I get that drawn too, regardless if it's been done? It's rude to go to another artist and ask for the same pose, but if the original artist turns down doing the same pose more than once, how can anyone be surprised? What did they expect, for the customer to just give up? Why is going to another artist taboo if the first one says no?