Tony, the reason "I" and others prefer more vertices is that a texture can not interact with light.

Only geometry can.

(Or, to a certain extent, a displacement map)

Attached are three renders of M4 using WERTS face morphs of Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

The all use exactly the same texture, so the sole reason they actually look like Kirk, Spock and McCoy is the shape of the vertices.

As the geometry can interact with Poser's light, they will continue to look like Kirk, Spock and McCoy regardless what lights I use in the render.

A super low res figure with a photorealistic texture projected onto it will only look good in a type of light that exactly matches the type of light that was used when the picture was taken.

The same is true for muscle definition. You can fool the eye by painting it on top of the texture, but it won't look good in varying lighsets.

As you know, I'm all for mesh efficiency, but a realistic 3D model is anything but a mere coathanger for a texture.

A well made 3D human figure will, like a classical statue, even look believeable without any texture at all.