Currently, it appears that while shadow calculations are based on the 
position of individual lights in the area light, shading calculations 
are based strictly on the center point of the area light, which means 
that the diffuse lighting and highlights will appear as if based on a 
point light source.  Shading should be calculated based on the location 
(including adjustment for jitter) of each sub-light in an area light.

Secondly, area lighting does not allow the area light to have only one 
sub-light.  This should be allowed.  The user can then use a jittered 
single-source light and higher anti-alias sampling to smooth out the 
difficulties.

Thirdly (and I am sure that this has already been suggested), allowing 
jitter of reflected and refracted rays would very easily implement 
blurred reflections and refractions, making some nice effects available 
(with a sufficiently high anti-aliasing level in the overall render). 
The distribution of the rays should of course be variable, allowing for 
effects from perfect specular reflection (the mirror-clear reflection of 
the current version) at one extreme, to diffuse shading, all the way to 
ambient shading.

Regards,
John

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