I seem to have a very hard time dealing with parented objects, remembering to load them after posing, much perfer conforming objects, and such and was wondering what are the pros and cons and differeances?  

figures(Conformers)actually make more sense these days as they can do anything that props can do and more. Props, while they can inherit the bends of a parent cannot have their own joints or even more then one bodypart, you can't parent them to more then one object, and you cannot apply mat poses to them unless they are parented. the one thing that props have that Figures don't is ease of creation. for a prop its as simple as load in poser, save prop, done. Figures have to have at least a rudimentry skelital system, even if its just one bone, so it is going to be more work then creating a prop.

Just to add to the above post in another way of thinking about it...

If I make some chest armour and parent it to the chest of the figure, the armour would sort of move like one would want but need additional tweaking/moving into place. This could be okay for a still shot but not for animations, however the armour would be solid and not bend...ie; like real armour.
If I make some chest armour and conform it to the figure then the armour would move with the figure identically and could be used for animations, however the armour will also bend as the body parts bend and move...thus resulting in maps being smeared and armour bending.

Kind of tough to explain unless you see it for yourself.
There is a time and place for both, you just have to pick and choose your pieces and how to parent/conform them and when.

Hope this helps.

well you can set bodyparts of conformers not to bend with the base figure if you want.

True, but you lose the joint parameters control when you do that.

Quote - you can't parent them to more then one object, and you cannot apply mat poses to them unless they are parented.

This is NOT true! But you have to set the right parameters in the mat pose file.

Quote -
the one thing that props have that Figures don't is ease of creation. for a prop its as simple as load in poser, save prop, done. Figures have to have at least a rudimentry skelital system, even if its just one bone, so it is going to be more work then creating a prop.

Props are easier to handle and smaller in size (important if you need an object several times in a scene). "Smaller in size" means memory consumption at first.

Thank you for the replies - it helps clear up my confusion.