Madmax... I have been experimenting (on a smaller scale) with your suggestions about blurry transmissions and the specular hilight settings. Awesome difference in the quality! (Also horrendous difference in render times!) I am really curious now to try what you are saying about "lighting the scene with reflections", but I don't grasp what you mean about that. Perhaps you could shoot me a small file with that setup so I can dissect it?