Does Maya allow you to animate with "stand-in" geometry?

Suppose you have a large scene with tons of detailed geometry,
could you display a "rough version" of those objects, that you quickly
model yourself, then have Maya render the actual complex
geometry?

An example might be a dynamic simulation with many things
interacting, how would you tell Maya to swap the objects for
simplified (rough poly) versions of the objects for interaction,
but each time you do a test render or batch render, Maya would
automatically use the full detailed geometry in any render.

A better example might be doing character animation with IK,
that instead of deforming the limbs with every move of a handle,
just animate with stand-in boxes, but any render will be of the
full deformed character...


Daniel