After bringing my mesh into his scene and looking at both his displacement settings and mine, there is no discernible difference.
I now think its something to do with sharp corners .... I just got a cube and put displacement on it and only when i made the cube filleted did the polygons stay together and the displacement function as it should....
It's all totally confusing and I now have a headache...

Is there anyone out there who has some input on this?
I've only been using displacement for one day and I came across this almost immediately.
So why is the forum not filled with reports of this problem!??

Luke.