Here's a question for Paolo.  This last render I did w/o a background and using the alpha channel option.  I, also, used an ibl w/just the light and no accompanying background image.  With this combination and a LOT of metal textures(the entire suit of armor - five pieces plus sword) set to a medium shine and custom metal; the bree shaders transferred over to mihrelle's wonderful Elana texture(all body parts covered by armor were set to matte); my rendering speed was like 6 to 8 times faster than what it normally is for a model wearing nothing but a skimpy bikini.  Any reason you can think of for this happening?  I sort of felt like a minor league pitcher throwing a no-hitter in my only big league appearance.  It gave me a taste of what my new computer will feel like at like 1/3 speed.

Not sure if anyone else has felt the same phenomena.. but having my settings dialed in nearly perfect and seeing my render going at blazing fast speeds was nearly addictive.