Wow, thanks for all of the replies everyone!  I REALLY appreciate the input, and had a feeling I'd be embarrassing myself with my lack of lighting knowledge.  But I'm enjoying the crash course.

Ok, it's defintely not animating lights ... that is the first thing I do when I start an animation.  (In fact, my default scene for loading Poser has the lights locked down.)  

My tweaks in the render engine have gotten me a lot closer to noiseless shadows, and have improved the IDL areas (like internal parts of this object where object-based lights are casting strong IDL) but the shadow spazz remains.  

Thanks for the info on AO lights and IDL Laurie,  I think that could very well be the culprit.  That makes sense now that I think about it, because the areas with the most problems are the areas with most AO.

And thanks Hborre for the tip on IDL/IBL and the further explanation regarding the various interactions.  In both cases, I like the look offered by IBL but also needed the IDL for object-based lighting and glows, etc.  Same for with AO ... it is appropriate for for other objects where IDL is not really a factor.  

Sounds like I need to do seperate render passes for these occasions and then composite.  I do a LOT of that anyway, so not a huge deal.  I just need to update my Python stuff for PP2012 and/or just use Vue.

Thanks!

-Tim