Seems like your solution pretty much nailed it... Ockham's advice would be the route I would have taken. UVing is inherently a struggle, especially if you don't have a robust array of tools at your disposal. Wait until you get into organic models!

As an aside you might want to consider putting some micro bevels on the planar edges of your hard edged objects to catch highlights. Just be aware that you need to set smooth polys to off and the crease angle of your model to 0 in its properties. Otherwise the bevels and poser's smoothing will cause artifacts in both the preview and renders.

 

christ, never thought I would be offering poser advice to lesbentley!