Replace character in Media Library

Hi,
I read that we can't replace photographic characters all at once in the ML, is this true, or am I doing something wrong? I am trying to replace a photographic character with an illustrated one.

I can replace when I expand the character in the ML to see all the instances, but I would then need to replace each instance. I also need to re-do the poses and expressions (is this right?). When I select the unexpanded character in the ML, the replace button  is greyed out.

Seems like a lot of extra work just to swap a character out and have the same poses and expressions, or am I missing something?

Thanks,
ST