"oh!   i'll also be making anthro parts (furries).   is there a  proper/good method for making body parts for existing human figures?  like hands and lower legs/feet?  (wow, this brings back memories of wanting to create a 'furry factory'.)"

In Poser 11 and 12 there is the Match Centers To Morph command. So you can create a morph that turns the feet into an animal type arrangement and apply the match centers command, this will move the origins of the bones to match the new shape. The results will be attached as a dependency to the morph dial. The command can also be baked as a new rig. Further refinements can be done manually via Animated origins and orientations, which can be done via the joint editor.

Not sure if geometry switching and animated origins can be used in tandem. But that would be a (very) hypothetical idea. Would be interesting if the switching and animated origins could be manipulated by a further dependency. Geometry switching and weight mapped or unimesh figures won't work in tandem as far as I know.