"Look at the scene. If there should be light coming from something, then make sure there is light coming from there."*

Then Ingmar Bergman is wise!

I used to have lengthy conversations with my good friend, Rashad Carter, on the DAZ Bryce forum about that very thing.  The trick for simulating realism is simple; do what is there in real life, not what isn't.  The conversation often popped up when comparing bounced light algorithms to using area lights dotted around the scene.

Area lights aren't floating around a room in real life, so using them in  a scene will never be as convincing as using bounced light algorithms such as Radiosity, IBL, or TA.  In the end I think he agreed, but man, it took a while!  So yup, Reality 3 is cool in that it lets you work with a renderer designed to simulate the light interactions that happen in real-life.

Not only that, I think Paolo is very generous with his pricing, it's not like you have anything to loose by giving Reality 3 a go.