Replicand:

Have you used the Greenbrier software? I have called them a few times to discuss it in more detail, but they have never answered the phone.

 
**Revisiting the original question here,** (and don't get me wrong, I know what skin weights are) **what exactly are skin weights mathematically**? **Where are they in the Poser file structure?**   
 
If any given polygon consists of x, y and z coordinates and vectors to describe its spatial orientation, then what are the mathematical definitions that accompany skin weights? Are they embedded in the polygonal definition? Are they additional lines of data that refer back to the polygon? Are they a separate subsection within the definition? Are they references to groups?  
 
If we can clearly understand the answer to that question, then we can begin to understand if it's even possible to carry them over to another program.   
 
Since the geometry can be transported through the obj format, obviously the obj format itself is the culprit here if it cannot also contain whatever the skin weight attributes, (formulas, numeric data, strings, whatever) are.  
 
OK. If that's the case, then perhaps we need another file format that can look at the Poser geometry files and extract the existing skin weight data and provide it in a format that replicates the data structure that Maya understands.   
 
So we will also need to know how Maya uses skin weight data to determine if there are any correlations between the two programs that can be utilized directly or if there need to be major transpositions and translations.  
 
A further problem is that any new format must be available as an export option in one program and an import option in the other. Since the creation of a new standard such as this will probably not occur with any rapidity, we are constrained to using the formats already available.   
 
So the concept would run something like this:  
 
once the location and values of a Poser figure's skin weights are determined, a Python script is created that extracts, converts and saves the information as an obj file, (even though technically the file is nothing more than a data vessel to carry the information across) to be imported into Maya where a mel script re-converts the data into skin weights and "attaches" them to the previously imported figure.   
 
Since I have no idea of the complexity of the data structures involved, I can only provide the "what might be done" not, unfortunately, the "here's how to do it." But maybe this will trigger some further research into this problem which has gone unsolved for far too long.  
 
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