Just a few points from my experience, which I hope will help:
IMHO, Stormchaser's render settings are a bit extreme and will probably lead to big render times, not necessarily increasing proportionally the quality of the rendered image. I would recommend this below but feel free to ignore me, of course:
a) Blurred reflections and blurred transparency increase render time very much. Only use materials with those if you really must. I never use blurred materials, I always simulate blur with bump. And, of course, I never check the corresponding options in the render settings.
b) The minimum subrays per pixel can safely be between 4 and 8. This can have a dramatic effect in render times. Only very rarely you need to go over this.
c) The maximum subrays per pixel can be about 10, if you don't have soft lights nor complex clouds, and maybe about 16 if you do. I very rarely go over 16. Some plants also require higher values.
d) The quality in AA can normally be in 80%. If you have soft lights or complex clouds I would recommend 95% or above. Only once or twice I needed 100%, it's not very common.
e) Texture antialiasing is very rarely necessary. I think I only used it once. In fact, its use can change the look of textures in unwanted ways. I would recommend to only use it if you see artifacts, typically moiré patterns in the horizon or caused by very thin texture lines.
f) Finally, not in the render settings but rather in the quality slider of the light tab of the atmosphere settings, I would recommend that you experiment with negative numbers (-1) and only if this is not acceptable (grain or blotches) you should increase it.

Regarding your question about AO, Vue works in a completely different way from Poser in this aspect. In the atmospheric settings, lihgt tab, it's where you define your lighting model. Here you have AO as an option but mind you that this is not the best. You can also use GI or GR (increasingly better but more demanding from the render engine).

Have fun! :-)