Thank you antivirus... that certainly did the trick :) I eval'd the template_hook at the end of the user info panel on the postbit and had to set up a custom template with the details...

But although it worked, I'm still convinced that there must be a way to actually use the values of the bit variables on the custom profile fields as pure php code within the plugins, and not a pseudo-mix of a template glue-together system...

Anyway many thanks for the suggestion - at least it works :)