JAYHAWKBABE Thanks for getting back to me! I am using the Fink package of GNU p7zip v. 4.44. I did some more testing to better define the issue and determined that the problem was in the decompression of a *.7z archive. (It did not matter if I used 7zX or GNU 7z to create the archive.) Upon decompressing with GNU 7z, the paths (i.e. relative folder structure) were not being preserved. They were, however, when I extracted with 7zX. This made me suspicious, so I double checked the GNU 7z extraction command that I had aliased in my .zshrc. I had mistakenly typed "7z e" instead of "7z x"...*blush* I am embarrassed to say that this was the source of all my problems. Thanks again for your response and the good software. I will likely keep using it because of its convenience. :)
(Version 1.6.3)