Quote - EnglishBob, I could KISS you! lol.

It's looking good - glad you got it working nicely. Dynamic clothing really needs more polys than conforming clothing, so 8000 is not excessive. Conforming clothing can have extra polys put in at the critical points, and not elsewhere; but with dynamic clothing, the critical points could be anywhere, so you need extra polys everywhere. Additionally, it works best if the polys are all about the same size if possible (turned-over hems and the like not withstanding).

Quote - I have a question: what settings should I use to shrink this dress to another figure without draping that skirt? I mean, everything would need to stay pretty much where it is until it conforms to the other figure, right? And I don't want the skirt to drape at all.

A good start would be to set the cloth density to zero, so that gravity has no effect. Hopefully that will preserve the skirt shape. Try to do as much preparatory work as you can, with scaling and even magnets so that the simulation has as little work to do as possible. Once a simulation has produced something usable, even if it's only on one frame, that's all you need. Export that and run away very fast. :)