"I'd still be interested to the see the first one with a larger number of bounces..." Me too. Remember, it's raytracing at work here... an accurate rendering method that plots a view of every pixel in a scene through a virtual camera's lens. Rays are cast from the camera, taking into account the location, strength, and quality of each object in the scene. Reflections should be accurate and realistic regardless of POV, however there definitely seems to be something strange going on in both the original and my first test render. At least to my eyes, and compared to the results in other raytracing engines.

---

Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.