Thank you, Vilters, for the tip; I wondered what those little 'sparkles' in the pre-render view were for...I'll try the diffusion reduction, too.  And, btw, I also tried your suggestion to foreshorten 'waist' as well, and the results seem worthwhile...I sorta combined the two 'y-axis ' reductions to get the appearance I was looking for.  I also lengthened her legs at the thigh and shin in small increments.  Now she's all beautiful and leggy, too!

Bagginsbill, I am glad to hear what you've offered by way of the various lighting clarifications.  I can see that Poser did these work-arounds to get an effect, even if it was not entirely correct.

Given your thoughts on this, should I set light shadow to zero?  and if I use IDL, should I eliminate any AO/IBL in the scene, including textures that have 'AO' built-in?  Many modellers offer AO and non-AO versions of their textures.

I think the render times should shrink dramatically if poor Poser only has to do one set of light calculations.  Hopefully, I'm heading in the right direction here.