Quote - Sunlight has a Shadow of .912.

No, it doesn't.  What that's saying is that for a 100% opaque material, 8.8% of sunlight will still pass through it.  Which is not correct.

That "lowering the shadow intensity" thing is a kluge left over from the older Poser days when IBL and IDL were not available to provide the ambient light that will make your shadows less intense.  The effect is the same---shadows that aren't dark---but one way is changing the rules of reality and the other recreates how those shadows become less dark in the real world.

The attached picture is BB's stockings shader applied to:
2_SkinHip
3_SkinFoot
3_SkinLeg
3_Toenail
Without creating any new material groups. The groups with 3 prefix take the limbs texture; the one with 2 takes the torso texture.

If you're using a figure that has fewer convenient zones already set up, then creating new ones for the pantyhose or stockings is necessary, but with default V4 zones pantyhose is just about done for you already. Or perhaps I've missed what you were trying to do?

Quote - So while in a lot of cases, photorealism may not be art ...

I think it is an art.  Just not with the same emotional impact that other art types might have.

As for Poser photorealism, that's not going to happen in any version out now but I still think that you can get fairly acceptable results if a little bit of care is taken.
Here are two images I did recently in Poser Pro. And while they hardly compare to a professional renderer and I can see things that I still need to improve, I wouldn't say they're bad enough for me to give up entirely.

www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php
www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php