Okay, I'd say the culprit was definitely texture filtering.  Once I got it turned off this is the result in the same area.  I've circled two spots that I can't tell are part of the texture or weird artifacts like on the initial render.  This means, I'll be turning off texture filtering by hand when using Poser 7.  I'll put a call out for a wacro/python script to turn it off and on with one click.  I love my convenient toys.

Conniekat8:  It may be worth it to you to put your money toward Carrara.  The renders I've seen with Carara are beautiful and you can still use Poser 6 for posing.  Myself, I really do LIKE what the Poser 7 render engine is capable of.  Just a few kinks to work out grins