Beware that removing edges like you did changes nothing to triangle count. It's just Max display. Internally it's the same. You only optimize by removing vertices.
Generally, the less UV islands, the better. Less pieces to understand when painting, less seams to deal with, and less vertices when exported to the game mesh format.
i have deleted all the faces, and i probably will get it to a thousand for a hi poly. ill try to mess with the vertices to add some irregularity thanks :D
Ah yeah quiet obvious and probably less noticeable on desaturated look like GOW. So everything was baked down into maps ? Props etc... Nothing on vertices ?
you have to manually adjust the normals of the corresponding vertices. let them point in the same direction with the set vertex normal tool and everything should be shaded smooth.
It's where the vertices really are. You're just previewing in dynamic subdiv mode. You want the divide button in the section at the top if you really want to subdivide the mesh.