well, i just rendered out this in about 3 minutes. I was quite excited about looking at physical sun sky, so i jumped ahead to that. this is with just the default settings, all i did was raised the sun up in the sky. I can see how its given everything a softer look.

GecT, I wanted to get something that had more of a professional feel. In 'replicating' the picture, i mean more in the overall quality of the render, i see what you're saying about missing details in the brickwork, the depth of the houses e.t.c. The roofs are also taller in the picture im working from and the proportion of the window roofs to the rest of the roof is severely different. I will be trying to remodel some of the parts though, and ive hit some problem with my textures now so i'll be redoing some of them. gonna call it a day for today.

will post updates over the next few days. I feel up for it now, got some good issues to get to grips with..