lindans & tebop:

yes the material room look almost identical, and just about is.
As for the bump map issue I presented; further investigation on my own (seeing as how the 'community' today prefers to 'dissmiss' rather then 'address") I feel now that what it may be doing is keeping some form of low resolution thumbnail of the targeted bump map and unless you physicaly re-browse for the target each time you open a saved project or re-load from the library the it appears to use this low-resolution version for rendering (ie: as indicated by the "No Image" blank thumbnail when you click browse).

What I did was make a very simple prop and apply ONLY a high resolution bump map with a value of '1', rendered that and saved render with just default lighting. Then saved the project (PZ3) and saved the textured prop to the library.
Then I closed down Poser 7.
Reopened it and loaded the saved project, rendered WITHOUT entering the material room. What I got was a prop rendered indeed with bump mapping, however visually Different then the first original render (note: no render settings or lights or other tweaks made - these two should be Identical!). I saved that as "test2".
Then close the scene (without saving this time) started a new and loaded the previously saved prop (all still with just default lights and settings, and hit render....this time it looks like #2, but shouldn't it look like #1?
Now, I did not close the scene nor Poser, I just went into the material room, browsed for the target bump map so the "no image" place holder went away and now shows the proper map (note, the node DOES show the map, its when you hit "Browse" that P7 tells you there is "No Image" applied to your node). Now when you render this 4th test visually now looks like the 1st one.

now I opened all four in PhotoShop side by side and deffinatly #2,#3 'look' as if they were rendered with a completely different map applied then #1 & #4, IMO it looks like #2/3 where rendered with a very low res bump map applied...lining either 2 or 3 up over 1 or 4 and the bumps don't even align right, some don't even show, yet #1 and #4 look Exact (as does #2 and #3, to each other).

Now I did this with a rather Exagerated texture applied, when I do my 'actual' rendering my maps are not always set so high, and there are usually colored textures applied as well, so this otherwise 'minor' change in my applied mapping and settings could....and has...produced renders that look like I might have not bothered applying any bump map at all, I basically waisted my time in doing so.

To date nobody had come to the same conclusion as I so I can only say 'try it out yourself'. EF tech support finally contacted me on this issue, but again they only appeared to be looking at it the way as others in the forum(s), since I gave the above description (and I sent them the test files and my saved test samples) I have not heard from them since.

So, if Bump mapping is not critical, or if you can do with using anything other then an Image Map for your bump, then all is fine and there is no problem. The only time is if you want fine details in your rendered image using a greyscale image map for a bump map (NOT displacement, that's a whole nother thing and Not effected) then you just need to re-browse every time you re-open a saved scene or load a pre-textured item (CR2 or PP2) from the library. So, if you are used to Poser 4, 5, or 6 and re-open a project you have been working on and hit render thinking "finally, the final render will be done" but then you notice it just dosen't look like you have the 'texturing' as your previous test passes - Re Apply your Bump maps....again