A technique I learned from my Strata days was that for area lighting, if you aim a spot light at a plane and turn up its brightness quite high, you get a decent area light. Carrara seems to be much happier with this then using the Glow channel to create an object light source. I get much less artifacting and faster renders that way. I find the renderer quite fast, and I am on an old machine so I am not sure exactly what you are rendering. I do find glass slow to render. Mabey once the new forum is up that I hear rumoured they should create a rendering section, so that we can all discuss rendering techniques and get the best out of the engine. The Strata community made great progress under after discussing things amongst each other. As for mental ray, XSI is tempting me! but I think I will hold off for now.