**Conniekat8 & operaguy
The collada route will not give you the results for what operaguy is after,
if i understand well operaguy whants to have a fully "editable" rig ?
Collada gives you not the bones but helpers !! 
The envelope weighting is baked and only useable if your willing to weight by vertex ,
which is a nightmare with poser meshes.
Loading morphs with collada is very "heavy" because the morph is bassicly a deformed mesh and you bring MAX to its knees.
JCM in MAX is bassicly the skinmorph modifier with works much better than JCM's because you can model the morph the way you want it to deform.
The dvd paul made on this subject is a must have in my opinion and saves you hiring a rigger because i think that although it may look intimidating the proces is very straightforward with the right tools.

**