Quote - ...On my IDL renders the lights just destroy any kind of realism the figure has.

As stated earlier, turn the in/out nodes in BB's Sphere to 1 if you're using Firefly's gamma correction.

Quote - I use reflect in place of specular. Render times go way up. In these examples the reflected hair took over three hours while the non reflective hair takes three or four minutes.

I once dripped a glob of hot plastic on my hand. It hurt. Now, I don't do that anymore... Neither should you order Firefly to render full reflections on hair. Specular is just fine. If ya just gotta do it, use a reflection map instead of trying to make Firefly calc every face/angle for the hair in relation to the scene. Reflection maps = quick reflections where exactness doesn't matter.

Quote - I also avoid using 360 degree images that have direct sunlight in them because of the lighting problem I have.

Gamma correction on the nodes in sphere materials should be 1 (off) if you're using Firefly's GC setting. Adjust Indirect Lighting intensity if necessary as well. An IDL sphere like BB's is perfect for exterior sunlight shots, but it will blow out your scene at default settings unless you handle the GC right.

Quote - How are most people rendering stuff in poser these days?

I push the Do Art button. If nothing explodes, I call it a success. (I'm still learning P-2012Pro even though I was pretty good with P7 when I tried. Proper IDL and SSS and certain render settings... Still wrapping my head around those. I model more than I render.)