Actually I think I figured this out … looks like I don’t need to set the scope for what I’m doing and setting it to taxonomy was wrong for what I was trying to do … I just left it out so it defaults to postmeta and it all works fine

piklist('field', array(
    'type' => 'select'
    ,'field' => 'categoryreq'
    ,'label' => 'Categories'
    ,'description' => 'Terms will appear when they are added to this taxonomy.'
    ,'choices' => piklist(
      get_terms('product_cat', array(
        'hide_empty' => false
      ))
      ,array(
        'term_id'
        ,'name'
      )
    )
  ));

Wow … thanks … am flattered … had a quick look … maybe try it out at weekend