I think its funny that the places with the strongest punishments (and highest crimrate ;i) STILL think that the problem is that they are beeing "too soft" on the criminals... Boggles the mind.
Your edges are probably too hard; you'll want to exaggerate softness and details a bit in your high poly so that they transfer better into the low poly.
For an example of a modular character design, check out Jesse Sosa's excellent example http://oldwiki.polycount.com/SkankerzeroModularCharacterSystem (the images aren't up on the new wiki yet)
Use a harder brush - don't be afraid to commit to hard edges. Working everything in with that soft brush not only takes longer but makes everything hard to read.