UE2 vs AoA: Is there a difference?

Scavenger

Based on some other threads I've been in, it was suggested to me that I try out AoA Ambient...so I did.

I loaded a figure I've been working on, then loaded AoA Ambient( at it's default, with ray trace shadows turned on), rendered a picture, then turned that off, loaded a Ue2 Light (at it's default, with ray trace shadows turned on). (pic 1)

I then loaded a regular spotlight, positioned it, rendered it, then rendered it with the AoA and then the UE2 (pic 2)

I then got rid of the lights, loaded in on of Lantios's Core Lighting sets which is made up of a UE2 light and 2 directional distant lights, a sun and a specular (which is what I normaly use for ligthing), set it's Sun/Specular directional lights as close as I could to the way the spotlight was set and rendered that in regualr and progressive modes) (Pic 3)

 I realized while typing this, that I should axe the specular for a closer aproximation, so I did that (and then realized I should set the Ue2 of the Core to the settings I used of the default one.which rendered in seconds as opposed to the minutes it does with it's origial settings. -- not shown).

And then I noticed that the sun was set to 50%, so I set to 100% having no idea how the Sun's intensity relates to the spotlights, but being thurough and all). .. So Pic 4 is sun @ 100% , no spec, with and without ue2.

As you can see from pic 2...there's no difference between the plain spotlight, and the one with the 2 "ambient light sources".

And pic 5, there's no difference between sun @ 100% with or without the UE2 (at it's default settings.)

So...what is the difference between these things, what are they supposed to be doing, and why aren't they doing it?

 

(Edit and the forum won't let me upload 3 and 4 so:)

pic 3:

Pic 4: