lol, i assumed and that was my bad. of course hitting the 2 or 3 key isnt the the only improvement : P either way back to the matter at hand. needing more faces for smoother geometry is just a drawback of polygons, i suppose u can convert to another geometry type later. tuck a duplicate away if u feel your going to get all "over zealous" w/ the smooth or try the reduce command. as far as laying out uvs, its probably going to be tedious anyway but u can use lattices and theres the smudge tool and at the same time, sewing can become a pain so use the smooth command w/ care.