Quote - "Are these high-end examples working more like it would work if I was using, by way of a vaguely comparative example, Reality Studio with Daz... or LuxRender with Poser?

These" high end examples" are what I mean when I say you need more than  geeky, complicated node math Shaders to create good FINAL renders
(as their galleries demonstrate)

You need a Modern lighting  system with true area lights with true area shadows.
 A "physical Sky"system for outdoor renders so you can dispense with ridiculous "Sky dome" props,  true, Fast GI engine for Gi animation renders etc etc or all of your
cumbersome geek friendly wire node shaders& materials dont really mean much IMHO.

Cheers

 

I can't get into the debate here but I just wanted to point out that even all of that ^ isn't enough. The artist has to know how to use all these things to make a pleasing image. You can have access to Modo's render engine or Vray or Maxwell and still produce an image that would get you laughed out of the most forgiving of galleries.  A pretty mess is still a mess, right? :)

 

Carry on.