that's not what you said:
When I create a polygon cube and map a file texture to it, it shows the texture, but when I bevel the same polygon, the texture dissappears!
and my point about the uvs still stands. You need to remap the object to get the texture to appear I would think. Hit automatic mapping and see what happens.
Alan
Technical Director - Framestore
Currently working on: Your Highness
IMDB