Thank you for the comprehensive guide! I hope it gets stickied somewhere to help others too!

Based on it I am guessing that the problem I am having is not normal, so I posted a question in DAZ Forums. (No morphs loading in Carrara with the figure). I do have all the prerequisites (DAZ Studio, Carrara 8.5, Essential Starter Kits), so something else must be wrong. Oy. And I was so hoping that the clean install of everything will save me from these troubles...