Good things come in narrow packages

[doctorwayne]

......I am always hesitant about putting figures around because I am never really completely happy with the results. They enhance other layouts that I have seen, but when I do it, it seems "fake" looking to me......

I have the same thoughts about most of my "peopled" scenes. In most cases, you have to have figures doing the tasks you wish to portray, unless you're able to modify existing ones well enough to look believable. Preiser makes figures suitable for almost any scene we could dream-up, but we'd need to also be able to dream-up lots of money in order to afford them all.
The other thing is scenes that remain static for too long: I've been on layout tours where the modelling is impressive and there are plenty of interesting vignettes with suitable figures. However, the scenes almost never change, year after year. They are, of course, interesting to first-time visitors, but I find it difficult to believe that the owners don't get sick of the same scene, day after day. The real killer is figures (and often much more) with a thick coat of dust.

I do like to pose figures for photos, but seldom affix them in place unless they can't stand on their own two feet. Even then, I use Woodland Scenics Accent Cement, which allows the figures to be easily relocated, with the stickiness still viable for quite some time.
Of course, I have some passengers on station platforms who have seemingly been waiting for a train for what must be years - scaled-down to HO, it may even be centuries. The layout room is usually pretty clean, but at least I do dust them when required. (Perhaps I need to run more passenger trains, or at least modify the coaches so that their doors open - almost all of them have seats, but no riders.)

Wayne