Have you tried making the glass real glass with the refraction and seeing if Carrara would actually calculate the funky caustics? Supposedly it's supposed to be able to do that. At a minimu, you'd get the light of the arms through the glass tweaked correctly. RDS could pull that magic trick off. If you do the gel and the refraction, I agree that it would look just like a real photo. Good job for inspiring all of us!

-Kix