Hallo,
the next SR is near and I think, my wishlist is so long, that I will try to make a small list of most missed features that I miss every day with some comments. I belive, this features would improve the work very much.
+ … to resize the progress window
→ this window makes me crazy: I want to see the infos and the bar, but the window is so big. A on/off command that can be assigned to a button could help.
+ … a synchronize button for the GI environment and the background environment path
+ … I would like to use relative texture paths
+ … support of integrated alpha channals for texture maps
→ Many texture bundles are png or psd or tif or tga images with integrated alpha map. It’s not a good workflow, to use two independent maps allways - color and transparency.
+ … I would like to choose between, that invisible lights are visible in reflections or not.
→ At the moment the invisible light without visibilty in reflections cause strange looking results
+ … IES lights
→ it a must for arch viz, my workaround is not a solution for the future. Could be one of the best features to sell VfR. 
+ … I miss to disable maps of selected materials temporary. I wish, each little texture “m” should get a flag option befor the “m” like the bump map option.
+ … It could be great, if VfR would support a “camera projection” for textures. The RCM mapping tool dosn’t do it and the last info from the McNeel team: not planed.
→ What would I do to get this feature? I have used it several times per Rhinoman|AIR. It’s a dream to make very nice looking images for advertisment. It can bring much details per texture in a scene. Please let us talk about this feature. Could be one of the best features to sell VfR.
+ … multiselection of materials (mat editor) could help to delete or duplicate a set of materials
+ … more functions to mix two maps like multiply and addition. At the moment only “blend” is implemented.
I would replace the “blend” by “function”. “Function” could show a dialog like the current “blend”, but the user can set different functions like multiply, addition, blend … . Example: I set a wall to a RAL acolor and could multiply this acolor with b&w map, that vary the intensity of the color. So I could get natural looking variations.
+ … map control for the reflection options anisotropy and rotation (!)
+ … physical environment system with sun
My feeling: new users of Maxwell use the physical sky and get nice images without any setup time. VfR should do it too. Also, it need much time to right setup a environment per HDRI and directional light. So, for arch viz the physical sky is must.
+ … change the DOF aperture parameter from rhino units to lens F-stop units
Real life cameras F-stop values could help to get the right DOF effect without try-and-error.
+ … network rendering
