NOte that when stitching, you can stitch multiple points together at once. If you have both UV mapper and Deep UV, it's a back and forth process there. as for the "exploding" mesh, remember that Deep UV can't handle poly separations of under 0.01, or irregular polys*. So first, make sure its all quads or tris. Second, enlarge it. 10000 percent if you have to (and some really detailed stuff in figures sometimes needs it). Get all the parts roughly mapped first. Maybe you don't let DUV finish a full relax, just enough to let you snag loose polys and such. Then lay them out close but not touching each other and get them sized so that they are all of similar scale. once they are close and in position, in UVmapper, just select all the points in a particular area. For example, the points on leg 1 where they would join to the body. Then select the matching points and stitch. often, a sub-d modeler will do the rough map on a low res version, and then "clean up" after smoothing. This makes the layout and mapping much faster and easier, as well. Part of the reason that "step by step" tutes for mapping are so hard to come by is that there's really no best way to map things. Another part is that so much of it is a subjective decision at the moment of working. And, of course, there's the fact that mapping a horse is completely different from mapping a cat, or a giraffe. THere is no one size fits all mapping methods. IT's all trial and error. You try something; if it doesn't work, you go back and try something else. It's not uncommon for some people to spend more time mapping an object than they did modelling it. Given the amount of money you've spent to try and figure out how to map well, keep hammering, keep asking questions, and don't surrender. A light will dawn suddenly, and you'll be off to the races...

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)