I appreciate your clear directions TBG,I wish the problem was as simple as not being able to follow directions (and I've made that mistake before).
I've been doing this for quite a while, and though I occasionally make mistakes... this isn't one of those times. Not only does it not work if I start from scratch, I have a number of preset characters that I routinely load: step one the figure with its materials, step two a wearable preset that contains hair, anatomy and sometimes multiple geoshells. Nothing works.
I switched over to the beta of Studio... everything loads fine.
So I used the scripts to copy all my custom settings over: broken again.
Clean install of the beta: everything loads fine.
So it is a repeatable issue. I just don't know what is causing it. Nothing changed in my custom settings between Monday, when it worked, and Tuesday when it didn't.