Thanks for all the tips, adp001! I'd been thinking along the same lines with the custom material for texturing, but thought I might just be missing something. Also, I'd been wondering what that "fake user" option was useful for. Now I know.

Also I guess it's a bit of relief to know I'm not the only person that Blender crashes on. Poser does, too, but very rarely these days.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.