Well, I'm making progress.  I seem to have fixed my problem for now.  Went back to an earlier save, rebuilt part of the mesh and then completely remapped the UV from scratch.  Below is a test render with a simple checkerboard pattern I used to check for distortions.  It seems okay.

I still have no idea what caused the earlier problems.  I can only assume I must have hit a hotkey or something while working on the UVMap and done something without being aware of it that introduced problems into the map / mesh.

 

 

Anyway, with the problem apparently resolved I'll get back to finishing up the project.

On question, is there any notable difference between importing OBJ files in Poser 6 vs Poser Pro 2012?  I'm hoping to upgrade later this year.   Could it have been a flaw in Poser 6 that caused the problem?  I'm still puzzled since the original I made as well as the one above rendered fine in Blender, but the first mesh had problems when imported to Poser 6.

Thanks for the advice, always appreciated.