Quote - This one's for whoever knows the info; but, I think I have my issue with my render speeds and it sort of has something to do with textures.

Ordinarily, when rendering with 3Delight, I rely heavily on shaders of all sorts.  Uber hair for hair, pwsurface2 for skin, glass shaders, metal shaders.  Anything that I think they can improve the looks of.

My question is this.. do shaders help, hinder or have no effect on Lux render times?

Well, of course, the DAZ shaders you mention for cannot be imported by Reality as such. Where possible they are translated into the analogous Reality/Lux shaders that you see in Reality (e.g Top Coat, and of course metal and glass). In my experience these shaders only effect render times to the extent of their glossiness, reflectivity, etc. In other words, there are no special considerations that would not apply to any settings you make in Reality yourself. The use of hyper-real glass, or a material acting pretty much as a mirror of a significant size, will tend to have an enormous impact, as you would imagine.

The appropriate use of lighting is what has the most impact on render times generally, which is why Paolo has put so much effort into training users in the correct use of it.