Quote - The big lesson here is to examine all third party vendor shaders for inconsistencies and errors.

Definitely.

There isn't a vendor that I trust completely enough that I can load in one of their products and press "Render" and know precisely what I'll be getting as output.

Glad you sorted it out, Benboom. Just make sure you check every texture you get. You'd be surprised just how many do the Translucency/Ambient thing. (And a whole load of other errors that I could mention.)