The problem with objects is, as you said, that you have to include the maps. Unless I'm doing it completely wrong (or Daz has an import option that compresses maps), you end up using a crapload of hard drive space.

The other option is to manually direct Vue to each map as it looks for it. That's a bit of a pain in the neck, but if you save the object as a VOB when you finish fussing with the materials, you'll only have to do it once. I recommend doing this with any import as it seems to reduce the resources that Vue uses.