oh, it's been fine otherwise.  i followed the export/import settings for Poser and Blender on PosetteForever, and they've been working perfectly.  i'm not (at all) good yet, but i'm having lots of fun with the sculpt tool.  it's wonderful.  the only thing i'd like so far is some standard brush controls to go with the any brush option. like adding options for square shape, aspect ratio and softness.  if anyone knows about locking some areas of  the mesh, that  would be great, and i suppose if i were an actual expert at virtual sculpting, i might be hankering for z-brush.  but right now i'm ecstatic.  i've been wanting something like this for ages, and it's both free and stable. 

i've tried turning on the "object groups" option, but it seems to have lost groups on import.  and when i import with groups to blender objects, it still doesn't seem to make different objects or groups.  i'll try more systematically tonight, and post settings. 

thank you for the advice and pointers.