I dont think this looks great. It looks dull.

I saw you made gorgeous renders, also great npr renders, so I dont understand your point.

Nowadays making realistic renders has become easy with solutions like keyshot, or others.

A simple hdr can kick out a pretty decent render with a few clicks, but setting a scene for animation, or bringing life to a scene is something you wont get by knobbling in your render software.

A good light setup will reward you quite some "Wow awesome incredible etc ..." comments on a simple sphere and plane scene.
It has nothing to do with the software you use.

First begin with a three lights setup, get something out of it, then you can add as many lights as you want. And then you can truly unleash the power of a bsdf engine.