Very interesting history lesson, BB. 
First off, I'm not here to judge. ; )

I do find it interesting that three different tex pkgs for M4 use, what I am now assuming is, your SSS color ramp. And I'm not saying they are wrong to do so. Thats between you and them.

But I have since learned that the color ramp is very subtle at adding not only red but blue and purple as well. Tweaking the values to ludicrous levels I could start to see where they come into play. 

Again the main colored ambient reduced down to a lower level seemed to make it all better.

Thanks for the info.