well after reading the help files, i found that there's hotkeys for toggling that proxy mesh on and off...

to toggle back and forth between the two (only seeing one at a time) then press the ~ key (without shift). it'll show you either your proxy (the unsmoothed) or the smoothed object. if you want to see both of them at the same time again, just hold shift and press your ~ key.

it also says you can increase (and decrease) the density of the smoothed object by using the 'page up' and 'page down' buttons... pretty easy, eh?