ice-boy:  here's a few techniques that might speed things up a little.  for one, merge the purposeless groups that all take the same textures by going to a material zone and setting it to one main one.  like setting the nipples material to the torso material.  second, in case you didn't know, .blend files act like libraries.  not a very clean method for maintaining libraries, but you can save materials in a .blend file, then use File > Link or Append to import the materials from it into a new .blend file.   i don't know about you, but i mainly use very few textures with some material tweaks.  about 4 sets of materials would set me up pretty good.  outside of making my own textures, which would be involved in any case.  for a third, you could pretty easily make independent figure parts (like the eyes, upper teeth, lower teeth, etc.)  into props or replace them with props.    that way you can use Poser Tools on those bits.  

you know what would be really helpful for figures?  a way to convert morphs into shape keys.