"if you want to justify bloat to me it needs to be by demonstrated performance not a statement of principal"

Bloat in of itself isn't good, but it's an objective thing.

Again, I refer to the V4 creature morphs. Without the mesh density, you simply could NOT accomplish them. That's not bloat, though some people refer to V4 as a bloated figures modeling way beyond poser needs.

Even models like Koshini are far over 20k in poly count. 20k  was great 4 years ago, but just doesn't cut it if you want a really versitle figure.

I'd say 50-80k is abotu right for a well modeled and detail human type figure. Obviously, for toon figures, or less realistic figures you can get away with less, but I know Digital I's T-rex is over 100,000 polys, and when i was morphing him, I kept wishing he had more to work with.

As far as things like armor over a figure, that's where things like RR v3 come in great.. you can;t see the figure anyway, so just use it as a skeleton for the armor to wear to.

But thats also clever planning on the end user's side. A knowledgable user would use a rr figure under armor,  and strip all the material maps off it completely to conserve memory.

There ARE excellent uses for low res figures, but there is an equal use for higher denisty mesh based figures as well.

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.