The main issue here and with most testers is that they only install the OS on a VM and that's all. When you do malware research you need to recreate the real machine. You need to install from Flash, Java, Acrobat Reader, Office, WinRAR and so on. Else, most samples will not work or they will not drop the payload (people from testing hub should have the same programs installed).
You also need so to specify what versions you have installed, this if you wanna do it in professional way.
This is just a thought, don't take is the wrong way