This just came out from Digital Tutors yesterday:
Digital Tutors - Introduction to V-Ray for Maya 2011
http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/training.php?cid=5&pid=431
Looking through it now and it seems very good! I think new users will have get a much easier way into V-ray for Maya with this tutorial set.
fxphd has an Introduction to vray, too. But it’s not very good, i’m afraid.
started going through the V-Ray from Digital Tutors, and I’ve already learned a few things I didn’t know. It’s definitely giving me a few pointers to move onward with my learning
yeah same here, i had no idea physically scaling lights was such a horribly bad idea 
that one startled me as well. I’m planning on testing that one out
Incidentally, with recent builds of V-Ray, I’m not having any time difference on scaling the lights vs using the U and V size. Just from doing some very quick tests, anyways
There seems to be a difference though.
that’s quite a big difference in noise and render time actually. I haven’t tried it with the latest builds. I do vaguely remember someone talking to vlado about this in a thread.
this seems like a thing that a lot of users would do because it seems logical to just scale the lights. maybe it would be possible to attach the U and V values to the x and y scale sizes of the light object?
i’m surprised this isn’t mentioned in the Vray documentation for VrayLightRect:
(at least i couldn’t find it)
Admittedly, I did my very quick test with a recent nightly build, and a very simple scene. Maybe when I have time I’ll try it with something more complex than a plane, a light, and a few spheres