I model from the hip. what i mean is, i use the 4 panel view for layout then i rotate in perspective view looking to see if all of the surfaces will fall where they are supposed to. I dont count my verts or try to line everything exactly to edit points while im laying out. I just pull push and rotate to make sure my 'cage' is looking pretty good and keep your curves as one solid curve until you have to break them up later on. with everything layed out i instert knots and start my snaping to edit points. Layout should get the points close enough to where they should be so that when i snap to my edit points, the cage really doesnt change. Right about this time i make sure i delete any unnecessary CV's. Too many cv's cause your surface to crease. after everything is in place, I give it one more look over and then start to break my curves apart at the junctions. after thats all done i use birail to create the sufaces. sometimes a surface may generate looking twisted, but insert some knots and keep moving. dont worry about the over abundance of geometry. once all my panels are created i rebuild them one by one to the dimensions needed. I wait till now to count the cv's because doing it in the begining gives you too much junk to babysit. now with a bunch of panels with big gaps i go straight to global, NO STITCH EDGE. (believe it or not) stitch edge waste time if you dont really need it. In general my method is pretty quick for me and i can produce a head in about 30 min to 1 hour. this method works great when i need to get all my work done by lunch.