ForceBaseTexture

I have been trying to use the following code below:

DefaultEffect newEffect = new DefaultEffect();
            newEffect.Name = "testEffect";
            newEffect.BaseTex = "MergedImages";
            newEffect.BindBackBufferTexture(newTexture);
            newEffect.Translucent = true;
            newEffect.SpecularColor = new Vector4(1);
            newEffect.SpecularPower = 0f;
            newEffect.EnableLighting = false;
            newEffect.Additive = false;

The newTexture is a valid Texture2D. I based the code off of a .txscene xml block such as:

<DefaultEffect name="SwordWalkMaterial">
            <BaseTex>data/images/SwordWalk.png</BaseTex>
            <Translucent>true</Translucent>
            <SpecularPower>0.000</SpecularPower>
            <SpecularColor>
                <X>1</X>
                <Y>1</Y>
                <Z>1</Z>
                <W>1</W>
            </SpecularColor>
            <EnableLighting>false</EnableLighting>
            <Additive>false</Additive>
        </DefaultEffect>

Now, I checked out what BindBackBufferTexture does,and it calls ForceBaseTexture below:

/// <summary>
        /// Used to replace the base texture with an existing texture without
        /// requiring a filename (commonly used for rendering dynamically generated textures).
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="tex"></param>
        public void ForceBaseTexture(Texture2D tex)
        {
            if ((_baseTexParameter == null) || (tex == null))
                return;

            _baseTexParameter.SetValue(tex);
        }

Here is the issue:

The _baseTextParameter is only setup when init is called, and creating a defaultEffect in code doesnt seem to set it up. Since it is null , it never sets that value, and my material is useless at that point. Is this by design or is there something I am missing? This is part of my runtime animation generation sequence (very similar to Diablo IIs token based itemization technique). Any ideas or feedback is appreciated.