Ha. Okay, learning things big time here that I wish were available for people who do this the first time. That thing about jpgs for instance--is that a bug? Will it be fixed? (eager minds want to know)...
Doing some renders now without the progressive refinement--yes, I took one of your render settings you kindly posted a while ago as my base.

And ...that transmap made that render you just posted above much better. I'll post my images once finished but I think you got the culprit nailed down with that hair specifically. My renders are always unedited and no-postwork, because I like to make sure a Poser render is showing what Poser is capable of.