These are Fisty's render settings, I tend to use something in the middle of the Good and awesome.

http://forum.daz3d.com/postimages/origimage_1_2808055.jpg

If you are rendering hair and or things with trans mats, applying  the Uber shader and turning off Occulsion helps speed up renders.

The problem I find with test rendering without shadows is that if something will cast a bad a shadow across the face for example, you won't know until your final render. Personally I find it suits me best to render at low settings first withshadows turned on.