Hello.

As Callad mentioned, starting from the Studio lights and trying to make them do the same in Reality/Lux is not going to work. There is a simple reason for that: Studio lights are not realistic. If you use the mindset appropriate for those lights then you will not get the right results when using physics-based lights. In fact photographers who use Reality are the ones who generally get the results that they want more easily. That's because they start with the mindset based on real lights.

As Callad mentioned, meshlights are the best wayt to work, in fact I rarely, if ever, use spots. Spots are probably the most unflattering lights that you can use. 

Quote - I think my current problems are that by using the mesh lights Reality provides tends to push things to the opposite end of the spectrum.

I think there is a bit of misunderstandin here. Meshlights are actually the most faithful representation of an artificial light source.

Quote - They appear extremely dim at render, and it's a lot harder to direct them so it doesn't interfere with the scene as you can with spotlights.

Are you sure that you are exposing the scene correctly? If you set a light at 500Watts it will be bright. Are you using the Linear tonemapper? 

Quote - Also, since the scale of the light directly affects the strength, it can be hard to balance it out.

This is actually not true at all. The scale of the light affects the softness of the light. Softness and brightness are not related at all. 

The brightness is affected by the distance of the light in relation to the subject. A light that is closer to the subject is brighter. The scale determines how soft the light is. A larger light is softer than a small one. You can have a 2000W softbox, in real life, a few inches from the face of a person which will result in very bright and very soft lighting. 

Quote - Striking the balance is probably Reality's steepest learning curve, especially since a lot of the focus is on the lighting. I've also found it extremely difficult working with the materials, as the options are far fewer than in Daz Studio. I'm used to being able to tweak all kinds of settings like subsurface scatter (sorely missed in Reality 2.0), reflection strength and more,

You can do the same in Reality. The reflection strength is controlled by the brightness of the specular color. The amount of "polish" of a specular surface is controlled by the glossiness strength. You don't have to micromanage the materials because they have physical attributes, something that you don't have in Studio.

The best way to approach Lux and Reality is to avoid thinking of them as "3Delight on steroids." Using the 3Delight midset with Reality/Lux is a surefire path to frustration and bad results. You need to think like a photographer and work in the context of realistic materials. Once you do that the results will happen right away.

Please don't hesitate asking more questions if you need.

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