oh, i realize that the runtime issue is a Poser issue.  i suspect the issue is the scripts aren't actually running from where they live.  i don't think it's just not bothering, i think it's more complex than that.  but that's just a guess.

unfortunately, i just overwrote my original V4 installer with the updated version.  but you're suggesting something that's actually much more complex than doing what i've already done to isolate the V4 base install.  i'm not confused about the S4 files (which i already have listed).  the whole system doesn't seem very confusing, which is kind of the issue. 

i installed V4 base on its own, in it's own folder, and so far i'm not seeing anything that seems updated at all.  looking by hand at files i'm not seeing anything that enables S4, or any other add-on for that matter, to work.  using search i'm not finding any files that have changed in the past two months except the ones that show the install date as the last modified date.  i've already searched for "082" and "Steph" in any of the text files in the base.   i can't, so far, detect any attribute to the base V4 install that should affect the installation of any add-on.

i totally understand how the cr2 and the readScript references work. those are totally obvious.  what's disturbing me is that if that was all that was going on, the V4 base wouldn't need updating and there would be no need to "initialize."   certainly not 4 times.  there are files that would need to have lines inserted into them to add the base readScript references. but that only accounts for something individual add-ons would need to do, not the base install.   i'd also bet there's a command to say," read all the files in this folder and subfolders," but that's getting ahead of the game. 

something hidden is going on, and as far as i can tell, Poser doesn't need this hidden thing to happen at all.  to really be sure, i'd have to get into figure creation (yuck!), but it certainly seems like a choice DAZ made rather than a requirement of making this system work in Poser.