yeah, it does go a-searching for files, though i am not sure whether it searches the entire runtime, or restricts itself to the appropriate subdirectory (such as textures) and then asks if it can't find it there (i think that's what it does, but my memory is feeble).  in any case poser is quite slow enough without allowing it to hunt for misplaced files at all, and i am glad rosity requires merchants now to use relative paths.

one can correct this without hand-editing by using hogwarden's utility CorrectReference, which is available in the freestuff here.  or one can shell out for his CRProII, which can do this and much more (my favourite poser utility for imposing some order on the slovenly filestructure :).