i suspect i know the answer, but has anyone managed to export fully a route calculation - ie all nodes on the route not just the turning points

I haven't looked into this in detail, but if I may suggest - have you looked at the Merging Multiple Routes article?
http://www.mp2kmag.com/articles.asp?ArticleID=72

I use MS Access to concatonate Account Number & Company name and import it to MapPoint as Name so it has first place. After the route is optimized, I use a query to split the account number back off. The new file constitutes a new geo-order for my accounts.