I see now that there's a difference between sub-D items, and props that have only one level of mesh. I played endlessly with three non-Sub-D items and tried every different combination of settings in both the Parameters pallet ('Mesh Resolution') and Surfaces ('Smoothing'). Nothing made any difference in my renders. I'm not going to worry about my edges and just get to work on my fully articulated thing-a-ma-bob. I'm also going to make a short tut (PDF format) on this since Daz doesn't want to document stuff for users, and content creators try to keep everything a secret to stifle competition.