So, turns out that Materials and Normal maps are REALLY COOL It's transformed this model from a blob of yellow lighting into an actually interesting piece of art.
It wasn't too much work to bind a few extra properties to the shader, and as you can see; the improvement is drastic. It's really interesting to see how the normal map actually effects the model like this, rather than it being some kind of buzz word or something you only hear about. and the math and logic behind it really is quite simple. the normal map tells the computer how raised that part of the object is, and that determines how much light affects it!