First, Gamma Correction? Duh 

1. All material-based AO. None on the lights at all.

2. I'm posting two renders. The first shows both Samples-3 and Samples-6. I think the lip with Samples-6 is worse.

3. Second render is almost good...well for now. But this has me stumped. I've angled the head way off center and the shadow on the lip is soft. Why would that be? And that's with Samples-3.

4. Re: Eye reflection. I have a specular light and a gloss node on the Eye Trans. Turning the head up moves the reflection down to the eye. I may have the light in the wrong position. The first render I posted was definitely on the eyelid itself. I'll try moving the light for a head down position.

My usual method of fixing the ugly shadows is to render separately and do a little blur on the shadow render. It's a whole lot easier and less time consuming than trying to get it right in the actual render. I think AO is necessary but not so good if it's hard and ugly.