"I tried this on both a nurbs plane and poly sphere." Wrong!!!!



This is your problem m8, don't assign to a shader.

You have got to create an 'image plane'



Goto 'view' in your perspec view or whatever camera,
Then goto 'camera attribute editor'
Then personally i would reduce 'angle of view to about 20 (less distotion)

This is the important bit-
then go down the list and find the 'Environment' variable section and click to open it.
then click the button 'create an image plane'
then in this new node click on 'fit to resolution gate'
then in the 'image plane attributes' select texture from the 'Type' menu

Then click on the button next to texture (beneath) to map the 3d texture to it.

Then do your stuff with the leather texture attributes as before