You will need :

Programmers File Editior (free CNET download)
UVmapper
patience :)

I mapped and saved my prop (a simple one piece slab of skirt armor and saved it as a prop with parenting to the figure's hip). THe prop has no textures on it and is set to all white.

I opened the prop file in the programmer's file editor and removed all the following: geomCustom data (several hundred lines of vertex data looks like this:

v -0.139294 0.324937 -0.047996
vt 0.025000 0.293374

I then removed all the parameters below that, all the way down to the materials (in this case, just one).

This is what the final file looks like whyen reopened in a text editor, after being saved as a .pz2 (the forum won't let me indent - follow the format you see in your text editor for the proper indentation of each line)

Right SKirt.pz2

{

version
{
number 4.2
}
prop r skirt2:2
{
customMaterial 1
material Preview
{
KdColor 1 1 1 1
KaColor 0 0 0 1
KsColor 0.149096 0.0395209 0.0181735 1
TextureColor 1 1 1 1
NsExponent 30
tMin 0
tMax 0
tExpo 0.6
bumpStrength 1
ksIgnoreTexture 0
reflectThruLights 1
reflectThruKd 1
textureMap "your texture here"
0 0
bumpMap NO_MAP
reflectionMap "C:Program FilesMetaCreationsPoser 4RuntimeReflection MapsSilverRefl.pct"
0 0
transparencyMap NO_MAP
ReflectionColor 1 1 1 1
reflectionStrength 0.468254
}

"saved it as a prop with parenting to the figure's hip" It is this step that allows a MAT pose to be used. Try this on a chair prop, all alone in a scene. You pull this off and then you get the rose petals and bull fight music.

i guess the chair would then have to be a FIGURE to be all alone; this would mean that a prop is by definition somehow attached to a Figure, as evidenced by the Hierarchy Window in the program.

Awe crap. i thought i was onto something. But i imported the prop from the library bar by itself and could still use the MAT file i made for it. back to the drawing board :(

I've said this a number times in the past, pz2 files will only work on cr2 files loaded into Poser; that's the way Poser is designed to work. That said, you can just take a prop file and change it's extension to cr2, Poser doesn't know the difference.