I had the same problem, although with 4 vicky2's, 3 mike's, 4 posette's and 4 dork's in a very complex scene. Had to simplify lights (switched off some shadows). Now it takes only 15 minutes before rendering actually starts (still takes about an hour to actually render). Stopping the render at any stage will actually work but takes almost the same time as completing the render (so I don't bother to stop the render for any reason). I have to reboot the machine after two renders because of memory leaks and about once every two hours when just posing. My machine is a 1200 MHz Athlon with 750 Meg.