Thanks bwldrd - that OpenGL link seems to explain it nicely. I just skimmed through the article, but that's definitely the 'instancing' I was thinking of. I didn't realize that it was the bottleneck of multiple 'render/draw/whatever' calls that instancing tackled.

So that's a clear answer to the thread title "Instantiation Via (Poser) Geometry Swapping ?"

No, this definitely isn't instancing. No worries. I'm still having fun with my Non-instancing Poser geometry-swapping of loose objects that don't bend ! !

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The 3Dcheapskate* occasionally posts sensible stuff. Usually by accident. And it usually uses Poser 11, with units set to inches. Except when it's using Poser 6 or PP2014, or when its units are set to PNU or something else.
*soon only to be available in two flavours -  DAZ and Renderosity