There are many factors that go into making an image appear realistic but regardless of content or render engine used it cannot be achived by the enduser if they are not willing to take the time to go over the details of their image and make it unique.   As good as a render may appear with realistic lighting and materials it can all fall apart if the character in the image appears un-natural. 

And Laurie is correct, before we can start achiving better images in LuxRender with either Reality or LuxPose we need to let go or unlearn what we know of rendering in DS and Poser.

BB, you may want to ask at the LuxForums about thatmaterial ball.  Havent seen it myself but if they use it, well they should know where to get it!