OK, I've tried a few things, learnt that if I use the grouping tool in the pose room to create the "constrained, rigid and soft decorated" groups in the pose room I can then later add them using the grouping tool whilst editing the groups in the cloth room. It hasn't made much of a difference though apart from the buttons kind of turning into spikes. The dress still falls in an open state.

I don't quite understand what you mean by dummy buttons, I did create a bunch of balls and placed them inside the buttons so they cover both sides of the seam where the dress opens and also through the buttons. Is that what you meant? and if so how do you go about adding to the collision list? To collide against or to ignore or what... I'm a bit lost =)

I could post screenshots but to see the detail of wireframes, the jpegs are about 300k each, is it ok to post a number of these inside the thread?

I've had some better results by draping the cloth, exporting the draped item and then importing it again so it fits as default. Then going into the setup room to make the item a conforming dress but the mesh appears to "tear" in a couple of places around the breasts and at the hip/crotch area. Again, is there a way to weld these tears so the figure can bend without the tearing?

Finally, Wardrobe wizard is pretty expensive, I did buy the original a while ago but of course that doesn't support V4 /sigh. Is it really perfect in converting or is it just kind of make do?

Thanks again for all your time.