Warning about duplicate. It will duplicate everything which is associated. So if you duplicate a prop which is parented to a figure which has clothes associated with it, everything is duplicated. It would have been nicer if duplication only affected an object/figure and it's children. (I found this out the hard way -- I duplicated some clothing worn by a figure, intending to change it in the material room to a displacement-based mud-splattered second skin, and got a second copy of the figure, its clothing, the props the figure was holding.

On the other hand, it does make some things very easy. I'm nearly finished with a rendering of a mobile made of identically morphed and posed figures, which differ only in their textures. This makes it very easy.