That's it!!!! Thank you so much for this. Just when I read your post I upped my Clamped to 5 and it already looks like it's making a difference with a quick test. Thank you! 👍

Okay, now I've pushed the minimum pixel samples up to 20 as well as doing 240 basic samples, and though the noise is cleared, the lighting still looks dull/flat. Postrender does do a little to fix this, but the light still isn't 'glowing' like it is in the original Poser 11 render ... what could be the culprit? Could it be a setting on the Area Light itself?

Thank you for replying - I increased the pixel samples from 12 to 120 and that made no difference, I'm now trying 240 ... perhaps I should try thousands?