I've noticed after surveying all of my favorite renders on this site, that, within each, each model seems to have a particular, distinct glint in his/her (mostly her) eye. Am I correct in thinking that folks are creating these glints, much like the reflections that come with some of the eye sets? If so, how is this done? Or is some sort of optical illusion, trick, or function of the lighting? 

 hi. you could try painting a lil glint with photoshop or whatever  paint program u have :)

The glints are created by upping the specular on the eye surface and setting the multiply specularity by opacity to "off". You also need to make sure you have a least one light set to "specular only" for the best effect.

Also, some eyes have the highlights baked in, these need no additional fussing but may not necessarily match your lighting. There are also the "Eyelights" reflections available at Daz3D.

i am sure that everyone does it differently. But for me, there are several packages that add reflections to the eyes. or glints as you call them.

After I apply my shader, I apply the eye reflections and render.

 packages like...?

Well, here is the Eyelights package:

http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/eyelights-for-victoria?item=7411&_m=d

"packages like"

Uhmmm...there should be several eye reflection packages in the freebie area here search reflections

Mask includes highlights in the eyes in several of his/her texture packages.

Its not hard to get that glint without postwork or pre done reflections that may not match your scene. If you have the HSS or the daz shaders from the old freepository. Both of them add a second specular setting that makes it easy to get glints. To use the secondary spec to get the highlights  the settings are white with spec2 at 62%, spec2 roughness 46.6 and spec2 sharpness 97.4 on the eye surface.