Lightroom 3 can coexist with GPS metadata in RAW files, but it does not provide native geotagging/location support in the interface. So if your NEF files already contain valid GPS metadata, Lightroom 3 generally won’t show or use it the way you expect—even though other programs can see it.

That’s why you don’t see a GPS field in Lightroom 3.4: it’s mainly a limitation of Lightroom 3, not necessarily a problem with your NEF files or tagging method.

Workarounds:

• Continue geotagging outside Lightroom using software that writes GPS metadata to the files.
• Use a third-party Lightroom plugin, such as Jeffrey Friedl’s GPS Support plugin, to add geotag-related functionality.

So the short answer is: you’re likely not missing anything—Lightroom 3 just doesn’t natively display or manage geotag data in a useful way.