I guess lighting does make a difference, because when I think back I remember many images had multiple light sources and they looked great. But I tried once to render a reflective object with a dark background and multiple light sources, and it looked like it was lacking no matter how much detail I put.
I was trying to mimic some images that I've seen done before. A few I remember done by Clay. Is there something special that is done for close up images? Maybe if you see the one done in Clay's gallery you'll know what I'm talking about.