Sorry about the confusion bullet.

I started out as a nurbs modeler and the 1,2,3 keys have worked for NURBs and SubDs all the way back to version 3 of Maya.

They added the capability to polygons in Maya 2008. But you could not render (in mental ray) the smooth preview.

In Maya 2009 they added the capability of mental ray rendering the smooth preview.

So from Maya 2009 on I have not really used the regular smooth function. Unless I want to upres my model and then cut in more detail into the higher res mesh (but I try to avoid this method of modeling unless I don't plan to smooth after adding the new detail).

So for Maya 8.0 your best bet is to apply a polygon>smooth then set divisions to 2. Render, tug verts, add details, and such but DO NOT delete history ot you will bake in the hi res mesh.

To get back to you base mesh set the number of divisions in the poly smooth node to 0 and then once back to the base mesh you can delete history.

Best of luck in keep up the good work. Your CH 701 is coming along well.