its strange that you cant relax an entire body part... after you're done stitching it together you should be able to just select it and relax it. if it collapses in on itself the only thing that i can think of is that there are some points that are connected on opposite sides that shouldn't be, and when you relax its trying to pull itself back to the sides it thinks it should be on. about the stray points.. i can't quite picture what could be going on there so i can't offer any help on that. if you're really stuck you could send me the obj of what you have so far and i can take a look at it.