>>  Like I said,
>> build a rough mesh by hand with maybe 100 or so polygons
>
> Uh... wouldn't that still be absurdly time-consuming?

No, not with all the tools in 3D packages specifically aimed at drawing 
meshes from scratch.  Like face/edge extrude, multiple selection and 
operation on vertices/edges/faces, mirroring ummm countless others I'm sure. 
Here's a screenshot of a car I'm working on by drawing the mesh from 
scratch.  You can see I have the front wing shown in wireframe so you can 
see the vertices, it really doesn't take very long to get them lined up 
nicely with a reference drawing.  After that the modeller will smooth it out 
for me by replacing each face with perhaps 4 or 16 faces in the correct 
places for a nice smooth finish.

> Yes, that sounds much more likely to produce useful results in less time 
> than the current age of the universe. Curiosly, I've never come across a 
> package which actually allows you to do this. (But since apparently 
> Blender does, I think I'll have to go give it a try...)

Actually, using this method with NURBS surfaces is very similar to adjusting 
the vertices by hand of a rough mesh and watching how the smoothed mesh 
changes.  The number of control points required in NURBS is quite similar to 
the number of vertices needed in a rough mesh to get similar control of the 
final surface.

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