@ EldritchCellar: Thanks for your thorough and clear explanations, and your willingness to guide me through obstacles.

@ Kerwin: Yes! :) I actually bought all three of Darkedge's tutorials. The "Redux," and another one for rigging non-humans in which he uses the PHI Heirarchy Builder, and "ZBrush to Poser" which is where he really goes into how to group the model - but he's using Max. They're awesome tuts and I've been watching and re-watching to try and grasp the general idea and despite some missing pieces in my toolbox, and for the most part it makes sense. That's why I brought up PHI heirarchy builder since that's what he used. Ray (Darkedge) also mentions UV Mapper Pro for, mainly, re-ordering verts on welded and modified versions of the obj in case the verts get arbitrarily re-named by whatever application - such as ZB. (UV's I haven't touched with a 60 foot pole as far as Poser goes, and that's going to come next, but I did make some in ZB today. Can't see any seams so I'm happy. Big map tho - it's resolution is 8192, and have no idea if that'll work yet.)

I have no doubt that this is a big project. I know I will need to clean up the weighting once I get the groups and IK into Poser, and at least that's concept I'm actually pretty comfortable with. I've rigged and weighted in Blender and gotten pretty savvy with it over there. I've watched videos of how it's done in Poser 2012, with the two kinds of weighting. As an artist, I can't wait to get to that... It's figuring out the ideal pipeline for me that's been the biggest struggle. But as long as there's a way where I don't have to code, lol.

So okay, it's looking like I was more or less on the right track, overall. I'm glad that it seems we're all on the same page about what my goals are, and what means I'm working with. ...Again, I can't express how much I appreciate the tips you have been able to give. It's helping me feel like I'm not flying blind, since it's all theory to me right now.

So, the immediate obstacle is still grouping and so my questions are: What modelers out there are confirmed to work as far as naming and making groups for Poser? Modo looks good, if expensive, but there's a free 30 day trial. Kerwin, do you happen know if Blender might work?

Sorry if I missed something and I'm backtracking, but just want to be totally sure: What if I didn't' actually -need- another application? Is it possible to get a ZBrush obj to export my polygroups as un-welded parts, then still weld them in UV Mapper. Can I name them there?