I am using Maya 2011, I don't have anything isolated and the visibility issue is across all viewports. I can isolate the one object i can see, and it remains isolated in each viewport mode but it doesn't change the visibility of the other objects.

Is there some way in Maya to only see those objects with uv maps applied? because i was playing with the UV texture editor when i noticed everything else had disappeared? the object i can see, is the only one with an image applied as a texture.

thanks for the input. Il keep digging