Basically (in my mind), it's this;

In real life, imagine a reflective sphere floating above the desert ground, in the middle of nowhere.

That's Bryce's default scene. (with a mirrored sphere) Boring...

Now, in real life, you sit in your livingroom holding a ball bearing. The bearing looks realistic doesn't it? Lol...well, sure it does, it's real life. But, my point is no matter how realistic your Bryce material is...it will not appear as realistic as possible if it cannot have some of the enviroment that a real object does in real life.

And, with reflective objects/materials, the largest missing ingedient in 3D world realism is something to reflect.

And, even more so with glass objects, since in additon to reflection, thay have transparency and refraction.

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