Last time I used Mentalray to test some textures/materials, I recall now that I used some preloaded project file hehe so thanks for that tip.

Also, when you mean "actual smoothing", I assume that is when you go into Mesh > Smooth [] ? I smoothed the portion again and got a really high polycount and this time, it showed in the render view :]

Clearly I am a Maya newbie but is this what you essentially end up doing for the final render view for all polygonal objects? NURBS works in a similar fashion too I assume right?