James,
I have the silver 64 which I use for shows and it works great. I've also used it alone (at shows I fill with a regular 36 silver umbrella) for baby and pet studio work and I love the way you can control the spread with how close you set it up to the bulb. For shows, shadows are bad. For portraits, shadows are sometimes good if you can manage them. The PLM gives you some nice flexibility in that area. Mine is the last version and not the current one. I'm thinking of adding the 86 for shows just to see if it will give me the coverage I want as a single light.

Jim