After you have your Dragon (or other figure)  in it's final pose with morphs and deforms;
save the materials set to library
then export your figure to .obj.
(tick weld, and I can't remember if I used save body part names or existing groups.)

Import .obj back in. 
Loading the dragons as props, reduced the file size to 19mb.

The caveat is the .obj will remember jpg textures, but won't remember procedurals. 

Loading the material set will ask to create new materials,
then it creates duplicate body names. 
I manually copied all the materials over to each of the original body parts.
On the bright side, once you save this material set,
it will apply properly the next time you export/import the dragon.

I'm too tired right now to test this method on people figures,
the theory is to save people figures as props
to use as pedestrians and crowd extras people.

But, what about the balcony? :lol:

The Hatchlings are going to swoop down and their shadow will cover the balcony,
scaring the couple sitting outside with their cuppa.  (tee hee)

Oh, ok ...................

It works with other figures as well, the limitation being (as you've found) that the .obj format only supports the basic material properties. IIRC, you'll lose transparency settings as well. 

Quote - It works with other figures as well, the limitation being (as you've found) that the .obj format only supports the basic material properties. IIRC, you'll lose transparency settings as well.

But you can of course save a material collection to apply to the imported OBJ.

Quote - It works with other figures as well, the limitation being (as you've found) that the .obj format only supports the basic material properties. IIRC, you'll lose transparency settings as well. 

Yup, .......... but you can add transparency back in after import.

There are free python scripts such as by Dimension 3D and ockham that with one click turn a figure into a static prop while retaining the textures. This prop can be loaded in the Set-up Room and out with no changes to turn it back into a figure so it takes MATposes normally. There also used to be a script in the Poser utility scripts called mini-mi or something that exported the whole sce4ne as a single .obj at 10%scale. The export-import process can cause the loss of the transprency setting such as on figure eye lashes which is the advatage of using one of the available scripts. There are also scripts that remove all "zero" set morphs stripping a figure to just the morphs used to make a character or a single new composit morph. Dimension3D's "Make FBM" I believe will generate a new composite morph and remove all the other morphs if you wish.

Attached Link: D3D Pythons: 12 Free Poser Python Scripts

There was a significant memory savings with the Dragons. 

Haven't seen what the saving would be on people props?

need a triple shot of espresso this morning to get the brain cobwebs out