"So, what are they really saying when they say 'distortion-free'?" I think they're saying it's much easier to take care of seams and most texture distortions caused by topology using this new method of UV unwrapping. Take a look at the feature description, and then download the demo when it's released to see for yourself what they're really saying. ;-) "Heads are basically spheres in a categorical geometric sense." Yes, but heads on human subD models usually start out as a box to avoid the pole distortion of spheres anyway.

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.