I have just finished rigging my first character. I'ts a lot of work, but very rewarding. It's so nice to then go on and animate it. What I did and it is probably really really wrong, but it worked. I rigged and skinned my low poly model, with paint weights and everything. Then I animated and after I finished the animation I used poly smooth (mainly because I was so keen on animationg that I simply forgot to do that befeorehend) But to my suprise it was fine. So maybe you can try that. Just do a test, smooth bind your low poly model do a simple animation smooth it and look wht happens. If anyone knows this is really wrong please correct me.