..and I spend most of my time in Poser trying to prevent smoothing...;) 'least on my stuff...;)  <<<

The way it should be handled is to "dial in" the level of subdivision you want to use. (Most apps do it this way). If you don't want smoothing, dial in 0. If you do, you dial in the level of subdivision.

Each level up divides each side of a polygon in half (or looking at it another way, one four-sided polygon would become four four-sided polygons when subdivided once).

Taking a 1500 polygon model made of all four-sided polygons  ...

Subdivided one level it looks like it's 6000 polygons (1500X4)
Subdivided two levels it looks like it's 24000 polygons (1500 x 4 x 4)
Subdivided three levels it looks like it's 96000 polygons (1500 x 4 x 4 x 4)

In actuality, the cage model is still 1500 polygons. But you can make it look like more when you render it with "true" subdivision smoothing. And the nice thing about it is, you can increase or decrease the smoothing as needed for your renders. If you don't want to smooth something that is far from the camera you don't have to. Closer to the camera? Yeah, dial it up.