This isn't so much a question as an observation.  I finally (yes, believe it or not, it works!) figured out the obj/cr2/external geometry/runtimes dance.  No one tutorial or book was step by step accurate for my install.  I had to 'Frankenstein' a workflow from LittleFox's clothing tut (Part 3-Poser 1, page 39) and this guys blog ( http://brian-the-techie.blogspot.ca/2013/03/how-to-rig-poser-prop.html ). I got a cr2 that points to a new obj and it loads reliably but I also get an xmp file(?)   I know that these files are a metadata container started by Adobe.  I opened it in Notepad++ and saw the sort of informational gibberish one would expect.
After reading all the books (yes I bought them) and going through the many online tutorials I'm convinced that every version of Poser works a bit different due to undocumented changes. I have the latest PPro 2014 SR3 (and yes, I paid for it too) and I occassionally run into things that aren't exactly like the official Poser manual or recent tutorials.
Littlefox also instructs one to delete the new resultant obj and place ones original obj in that directory. When loading the model Poser will ask where the obj is. You 'tell' it by using the pop-up box; it loads the new obj and all is fine....maybe? I'm going to play around and see if this sort of foolishness is still necassary.