Quote - Can you make the legs mapped so that where the seams join inside the leg, they have exactly the same V value? I don't care about U so much, just V. Here's why.

I like your suggestions, but I don't think that would not be possible without compromising other areas of the mapping. You may run into problems like Stretched UVs, Not so easy layout to texture, tons of chopped up seperate parts etc. It's tricky to balance things out to avoid the problems I mentioned above. Usually the benifit of one thing is the detriment of another.

Disclaimer: Im a noob at uv so I may not have a clue what Im talking about here :) It may very well be possible and still be able to balance the common uv problems.

I agree with ODF photo texture maps are very overrated and often done wrong ( highlights on the maps, too much detail etc. ) I'll take a good shader and a subtle diffuse color map, decent bump map over a good texture map anyday.

Edit: Whoops! I just read the post by ODF and Phantom3D that it can be done so nevermind the above post.