Sorry, (and thanks very much for ALL the suggestions) but I'm going to have to stop responding now, PLEASE  read the whole thread to see that I do understand what a morph is, and what the requirements for success are, and that I have already stated that the vertices are "kosher". I will update this thread when I have the answer.  Or, I may just say *&^%$% it, and migrate everything to Lightwave, where it's working. Of course, to do that I will need to get MDDPoser  pack up to speed, but that's a topic for a new thread, isn't it?
:) 

re: *Sounds then like you aren't even creating a morph at all.. you are trying to use a completely different mesh as a morph target, which simply will not work at all.

The definition of a morph is a change of point locations in an object. You aren;t changing the location of the verts in the original object atg all.. you are trying to subnstiture a completely different mesh instead.

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear,  or clear enough. The app automatically creates both the neutral expression head, and the morph targets, generated from the same mesh and having identical vertice order. I also tried, for shits and giggles, "attempt vertice order correction" in Poser, to no avail.  Plus, the Lightwave object and scene exported in the same way from the same app works perfectly. Plus, I got it to work awhile back in Poser, I just don't know how that happened. 

I think we are all out of ideas as to what's wrong, and so it's natural to want to believe that I have no clue as to what I'm doing, I understand that :)

Hi, blaack-widow
My 2 cents:
Having no formal training, I basically taught myself animation from scratch, over the last 6 years. During that time a friend of mine, being one quarter shy of an art degree he often reminded me, also endeavored in the same vein. He spent lots of money on good quality dvds, books, and was always finding some way to verbally show his superior understanding. I had neither money nor time to buy (or borrow, or read)  these things, I was too busy quite frankly shellacking him in everything we attempted to do together, animation -wise. Now, all these years later, he is lots of money in the hole, and still can't animate his way into or out of a paper bag, and is not making money on art, period. My career has (finally!) just begun but already I've won an animation contest (for category  "Best Use of New Technology", with a $250 cash prize) judged by an industry pro, and a small growing trickle of income every month is coming in due to my animation work. My approach is simple: hands on, hands on, hands on. Sure, I read manuals and tutorials, you have to. But I almost always only read and explore things that are related to my immediate goals, the urgent task at hand, to overcome the obstacle that keeps me from doing whatever it is that I've decided to do.

But on the other hand, you could spend a LOT of time absorbing the excellent "The Animator's Survival Kit", and it might help you 5%, (and perhaps make you feel really classy and well-rounded, like it did for my friend)  but it will not help you with the 95% software package specific idiosyncracies that can only be absorbed...that's right, HANDS ON.  Be prepared to spend major blocks of time at the computer, with roughly 20% of that time screaming at the apparently deaf and merciless monitor.

So my advice, for what it's worth, is to start with some SIMPLE things and get excited about making it happen, and don't stop until you've animated it  (Just don't expect the animation layers feature to work in Poser 7 or PoserPro, because it  just  doesn't). Then just keep building on your accomplishments. 
I can attest that Virtual Training Company has some excellent Poser video tutorials, for $100 you can get the 100 hour Poser 7 course.  I'm thinking about doing that myself, one of these days...when I can find the time away from all this darned animating :) 

very best  wishes
Eye

Darkedge, thanks, yes that's the kind of testing I'd usually do,  good common sense stuff...

but it doesn't apply in this case because the modeling app is not a general purpose modeling app. It only generates heads, and it starts with it's own mesh, and you cannot import an object. 

I'm getting help from the app tech support, but we haven't made any progress yet, it really should not be happening. Next step: reinstall. 

Quote-   *Are there any V4/etc "Morphform" body morphs enabled on either the target object or when you exported the original prior to editing it?

-negative.  Thanks for the tip, though!

Oh, and it can't be scaling because remember, the objects are the same size when you import them side by side. It's almost as if it's the strength ( parameter dials) that's doing it somehow, because the stronger you make the effect the more the head grows large (or inverted and large for negative direction).  

No, hey, THANK YOU!
Case in point, I just downloaded almost everyone one of your free Python scripts...holy cow there sure are a lot of them.
Yeah, you know this thing sure is a puzzle!   I just used the same modeling app to export to LWO and LWS  (lightwave object and scene), and it shows up there, with all the endomorphs auto loaded into the morph mixer, working just fine and dandy. Maybe I'll reinstall the app...

ockham, in case that wasn't clear, that's precisely my procedure, too, so...it's baffling.

Okay, thanks everyone for all the suggestions

1)Yes,  I've compared them in several programs, including Poser and Lightwave,  they are the same object (except for fiddled vertices) same scale, load at exactly the same position, everything.

1. ditto

and that's why I'm at a loss, it might as well be voodoo I can't make any logical sense out of it.
The only thing I'm sure of is that it's repeatable...it happens every time.  It's just something dumb I'm doing probably, but...

Thanks ockham
If I understand you correctly, you're assuming my head starts in Poser, is exported and then modified in the other program and then brought back in? Because, no, I'm not starting wiht a Poser head at all.  Or, am I not understanding... 

No, I haven't applied a scale yet but I would certainly want to be able to. The scale I'm at is much larger than I would want in Poser, but I'm leaving the import (Poser) and export (the software I'm using to make the models) options at default 100% scale as I work this issue out.

The weird (or just stupid) thing is, I got it to work once but I can't remember how I did it.  In Poser I'm putting in a head and then expression morphs (all objs) that I generate elsewhere. I've got a Poser file that has a head set up the way I need it, but I can't figure out how I did that. That head scales up and down just fine and the morphs work just fine too. Any props I've saved so far go back into scaling kookery when you try to use 'em. 

It WILL have a serious impact on the responsiveness of the user interface while posing - in fact, reducing it to unacceptable levels.

yep, confirmed that one.

(slightly expanding the topic):
You know, there is a lot to love about Poser, I've been getting won over these last few months doing animation. I now actually LIKE and appreciate how keyframing / spline wrangling  can be done there.  I just have 3 biggies left in my wishlist for improvements: - export 64 bit RBG (16 x 4 channels)

• animation layers that actually work
• collision detection in animation

It doesn't seem like it would be a far reach from the current capabilties. I mean, you've got frame by frame collision detection when you do cloth (or hair) dynamics... see what  i'm saying?  Or maybe I'm confused, but it seems to me that is what is happening... if you can do this for something "soft", why can't you do it for something "hard"? 

Thank you both for the very helpful responses

I detect a lot of wit i what you are saying, and all of it, as usual, is quite helpful thank you! That explains it. 
Yeah, okay that's good enuf, I can work with that, I suppose I don't need "tweening" detection between poses. I guess.

For whatever it's worth:

I run Poser 7 on my Vista 64 machine with no problems whatsoever, I simply installed the program to my c drive in a folder named Poser 7.

   IOW,  C:/Poser 7

and NOT in either program files directories     (x86, and regular)

But I also, first and foremost before doing ANYTHING with Vista, discovered the best way to disable the infuriating "permissions" issue that pervades the wacky world of Vista in the name of security. Mind you, my  Vista box is not connected to the internet, (nor will it be), so security is less of a concern.  I'm sorry, that was months ago, and I don't recall exactly what that best way is, but it took some research and some trial and error, but I finally got it to the point where I was never hassled again by lack of "permission" to do whatever the heck I want to do on my own computer.