Quote - This is my personal kryptonite with 3Delight AND Reality.  I've been trying reality lights.  So far, I've found them good for very subtle lighting.  Sometimes, I like to blow out my scenes with lighting riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight up to the point where if it got one iota brighter then characters would start washing out.

This is a problem of approach. You are formulating the problem as if there is one set exposure for the scene and the only thing that you can do is to add or remove lights and to change their intensity. This is what 3Delight does but that is not realistic and that's not how a real-life camera works. Lux works in the same way a camera works. So that assumption is a false one. The intensity of the light should be only changed to make a light more or less predominant in relation to the other lights. The intensity should not be changed to make the scene look brighter. For that you need to change the exposure of your camera. That is why you don't get the right result. Because you probably use Reinhard or Autolinear, which change the exposure automatically to adapt based on the numbe rof lights. That is like using a point-and-shoot camera.

What you need to do is to use the Linear tonemapper, which is the only one to use, and change the exposure to get the  "almost overexposed" effect. If you are not familair with setting the exposure you can search online or you can get my tutorial "Make Your Own Reality" which is on sale now, here at Renderosity. http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/make-your-own-reality-video-course-for-the-reality-plug-in/92647

Quote - Like bright daylight beach scenes where there's not a cloud in the sky and not a drop of shade to be found.  I just can't get my scenes that bright with reality/lux and I don't know how to do so. 

Again, you are probably using autolinear, which does the job of setting the exposure for you to be "right" So, here it is one image that is using ONE single mesh light and you can see that it's on the verge of being overexposed as the spider body has started loosing detail and beginning to be washed out. 

Click image for full size. The exposure is set to use ISO 100 for film, 1/2 second for the shutter and f5.6 for the aperture. Now, let's bring twice the amount of light by setting the shutter at twice the length: 1 second: 

Click image for full size. No change in the lighting at all. So, get familiar with the exposure controls. Lux makes this easy because it shows you the effect of the change in real time. Practise makes perfect :)

Hope this helps.

Paolo

https://www.preta3d.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/RealityPlugIn
Tw: @preta3d
G+: https://plus.google.com/106625816153304163119
The Reality Gallery: https://reality-plug-in.deviantart.com