deryk, when I model, I start off with nurbs to get the basic shapes off the whole character. Then I turn all the nurbs into polys. Depending on the character I attach what I can into one peice of geometry. The boy above is 9 peices, head, shirt, body, pants, legs, shoes are all separate.

I work mostly in low poly but I do switch back in forth between Polys and sud-d's to get a look at what the model will look like once I smooth the low poly form. Sub'ds are great for adding detail, and once you have the details you want in you sub-d switch back to your low poly put a smooth on it and it looks just like the sub-d.

Kurt