That head face_off - the one you posted a pic of - I have a low res version of that which renders about the same. It comes down to the quality of the underlying forms. If the underlying forms are good then you can get a great render out of the mesh. Doubly so if you are using subdivision alongside high quality maps (high quality maps does not always mean high res by the way). 

 

 Also, for reasons I don't fully understand as it seems many folks here use modeling applications, everyone seems to forget you can subdivide your mesh. So if you plan your low poly morphing with subdivision in mind, you should be good to go. Again, if there's a particular morph that you're having trouble creating I can try and do a video of what my approach to that would be.  I don't understand the...well knee jerk outrage at lower poly figures. I know it may not be familiar to everyone but they're just figures like any other.  As long as you've got good underlying forms and an understanding of the morph you're trying to make you should be able to figure things out after some time playing with them.

 

 I don't know I guess for me, this is just normal - I work lower res  day to day. Every Poser figure I've worked on, Andy, Andrea, the P8 dog, James Johnson, Hanna, Miki3, Miki 4 - they all started out as low res meshes. I had to work them on a low res level. So I guess maybe I'm just used to it and that's why this constant rally against a lower res mesh seems odd to me. People tend to lash out at things they don't understand but if you can point to a form change that you can't do with a low poly mesh that you can do with a high poly mesh, then maybe I could understand where you're coming from a little better.