Quote - ...in poser 8 for some reason I keep getting these artifacts where it looks like the mesh is showing as little black lines... 

see image above? any clues?

I'm not seeing them on the prop I downloaded, maybe you can post a bit of mesh which is showing the artifacts and I'll take a look at it.

 

Quote - ... and considering this don't you think it's a little unfair to compare me, a newbie, to someone like stonemason?

I should have qualified that reference to Stonemason. Every time the subject of economical mesh comes up there are posters who say "polygon count doesn't matter, computers are fast now, who cares about a few extra polygons?".  I was just preempting them, they'd better hope people like Stonemason continue to do what they can to limit polygon bloat in a scene with lots and lots of objects, or that fast new computer isn't going to seem quite so frisky.

It's a bit like saying "Conserving energy is stupid, it's cheap and there's plenty for everyone". Riiiight. But if every person in India and China and Africa takes the same view and installs aircon and buys a Hummer, things will change fast, for everyone.