well, obviously nobody can help me with that UV transfer.
however i figured out that something might be wrong with the polygon geometry in the first place...

i tried to convert it back to a polygon object and for some reason the edges (in object mode) are dashed, as somehow 2 edges are in the same place.
when i pick some vertices and try to move them, something odd happens: the vertices seem to double, and i can only move what appeards to be some kind of hull but the shaded geometry itself won't change. WTH????
i added 2 pics, the first one is to show the edges, the second one to demonstrate the "doubled" vertices of whose i moved a few...

of course i tried to cleanup nonmanifold geometry, but nothing happened.

PLZ, that's not the first time this happens. the has to be a possibiliy to make this unhappen...

by the way... i upgraded to maya 2010 and same problem here!