Now i have realised it appears there is no real integration of permissions between creator and the customer portal.

ie. The Customer Portal permissions that are set are applicable to ALL users, whereas the permissions that are set in Creator can be different for every user  

so my questions are;

1. is my interpretation correct?

2. is there a workaround so that different permissions can be assigned to different users if using the customer portal?

3. or preferably,  is this recognised as an issue and a fix is coming?

thanks in advance