I usually use a pair of 512-pixel asymmetrical tiles for each type of surface, so eight 512 squares plus the RGB map and a "scrambler" tile to prevent tiled repetition.  That's ten 512-pixel squares to cover Lothlorien, for example.  (Less memory usage than a single 1620x1620 map).

     Once a model gets very large, a single map is just not feasible.

Quote -   *...I also want to avoid using any advanced shader work... *

     Oh.   if you want to avoid complex node work, my method is right out!  It looks like five monkeys and a football in a vat of spaghetti in the material room!  And it will not be interpreted by D/S (or anything else).

nodework for the terrain of the  Galadriel's Mirror playset (the master scale is set to 128 in actual use):

 .

     Well, you still might try the displacement trick, and also try the inverse:  raise the stripes (so that the meshes are further apart), and use negative displacement on the stripes.

     I hope you can find a solution.  All of your Poser and Vue environment sets are superb, in a class of their own.

     One other thought:  In Poser Pro 2014, have you tried un-ticking the AO for each light?  All the default lights have AO on by default.

Poser 12, in feet.  

OSes:  Win7Prox64, Win7Ultx64

Silo Pro 2.5.6 64bit, Vue Infinite 2014.7, Genetica 4.0 Studio, UV Mapper Pro, UV Layout Pro, PhotoImpact X3, GIF Animator 5