OK, after a break for work and study, decided to start the whole scene from scrath with IDL. Results are much nicer, nothing glows at all with the lights out, so just maybe the python script isn't getting to everything (alternately, it says it has finished before it really has?). Anyway, getting much nicer lighting effects except for some hair products. I've checked other threads about this and have tried playing with gamma on the hair, transparency, even reduced the number of bounces, and although I get some variation the basic problem doesn't change. What am I missing?

 As a reminder, this is Poser Pro 2012. The materials for the hair are included as well.