The cloth room uses the animation timeline to allow easier draping to a final pose. Technically it seems easier to calculate cloth path and collisions that way.  Longer cloth sims take more memory but reduce the amount of distance the cloth has to travel in each step.

I prefer 5- 10 frames  at the end of the sim where the cloth remaons motionless. If the cloth is still moving at the final frame I add frames and recalculate. 

The various collision types can help if your polygons are a bit large or you are trying to drape cloth over something pointy. Using them increases the simulation time , a lot.

The skirt front edge in the last post to me looks like a collision offset issue.

with the pic of the woman sitting with knees up and arms behind her . I would start with her hip raised so her thighs and body are horizontal and the coth sim runs for say 20 frames, then slower her hip to final position over maybe another 40 frames. Cloth self-collision should be used in this case to get the bunching of the skirt.