Thanks for all the tips folks!

It's getting weirder, but that very weirdness might be suggesting where the problem lies.  I imported a simple Poser prop, played with it, noticed how sluggishly Vue seemed to be operating, thought no more of it.  Launched Poser 7 a while later - it too had almost seized up, with horrendous lag between every action.  Went online to find this was indeed a GFX card driver issue

http://www.contentparadise.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8235

....sorted that out and Vue has been much more stable, though not entirle crash-free.  I'm going to bring my old PC to life, with an integrated GFX chip on the motherboard and just use that for Vue.  Not an ideal solution, but it should work - I've deliberatley tried to crash it on my wife's laptop and it's rock-solid.

My self-build system - Vista 64 on a Kingston 240GB SSD, Asus P5Q Pro MB, Quad 6600 CPU, 8 Gb Geil Black Dragon Ram, CoolerMaster HAF932 full tower chassis, EVGA Geforce GTX 750Ti Superclocked 2 Gb, Coolermaster V8 CPU aircooler, Enermax 600W Modular PSU, 240Gb SSD, 2Tb HDD storage, 28" LCD monitor, and more red LEDs than a grown man really needs.....I built it in 2008 and can't afford a new one, yet.....!

My Software - Poser Pro 2012, Photoshop, Bryce 6 and Borderlands......"Catch a  r--i---d-----e-----!"