I have this book some time already. They advertise that only 40 models are really hires (mostly animals), the remainder is only useful as background stuff. But then Taschen is a publishing company for coffee-table books and the renderings of the hires models alone are worth the money. Those renderings are included on the CD (with alpha and shadow masks). The license of the book allows commercial renders.

BTW DeEspona sells a 9 CD set with 5000 HQ models for $495. But those models are in .MAX format, you can use them only with 3D studio max.