I'm glad people can get something out of what I do. That makes it worth doing!

You're right that the base is the key. If you screw that up, everything else falls apart - when modeling straight. When modeling the way I described earlier, it's not as bad, because you can fix mistakes in the sculpting process.

So, to answer your question, Silo (and now ZBrush) gives you the chance to use a marker tool to basically, draw - like you would on paper - on your model, a new topology. Some folks swear by it. That is NOT how I do it though.

What I do, is load in the high res model in Silo. Turn on Surface Snapping and lock the high res mesh (while switching it to a ghosted mode so I can see through it).  Then, I start modeling over the high res mesh. With the Surfac Snapping on, my edges or my polys - depending on how I'm working at the time - will stick to the surface of the high res model. This helps me keep the volume and form, allowing me to concentrate only on the topology.  Handy for converting a  high res mesh into a more useable low res mesh.