That's the way you would do it in Modo, not quite the nice results you get in Cinema4D but in a sense you could cross fit Cinema4d and Modo (import the belt in Modo once it extruded along the spline in Cinema4d) i used to do this in 3dsmax and LW.
Not sure what exactly you need it for but there is a tool in 3Dsmax in the Ribbon called quadrify. Selecte Editable_Poly, open Ribbon -> Modeling -> Geometry (All) DropDown -> Quadrify All (And some Other options that let you select what it thinks are all triangular edgeloops)
looks like it could come out well... you should definitely try to replicate that awesome pollen on the back side of it. Also... max autosaves every 5 minutes >.> can be found in your My Documents folder under MyDocuments/3dsmax/autoback
To disable the dithering in Max, you can turn off the True Color checkbox under Output Dithering. http://download.autodesk.com/us/3dsmax/2012help/index.html?url=files/GUID-5F506D3B-BC0F-4605-8EE5-A294543C0C1-3129.htm,topicNumber=d28e580642
I think it might be different for older versions of max, but for max 2012 you can edit this file "C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\2012 - 64bit\enu\plugcfg\unwrapuvw.ini" set RelaxType=0 for relax by face angles.
Can I ask something, the modular assets stay within 3dsmax and you model whatever you want or do you put them in the engine and build everything there? And do you make holes in the wall for windows or do they float over the walls?
I used to have the same feeling when I did architectural visualizations with 3dsmax. Since we couldn't change the dimensions of the models, we removed walls and placed the camera outside the rooms... like shooting a room through an open window or door.
Can't answer the sketchbook question, though for "how to and is it possible to make from high poly to low poly" you might want to search for 3dsMax Retopology: http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=3ds+max+retopology
I can't do much than this, since we experience the very same issues that your facing with 3dsMax. We are in the same boat. 3dsMax2012-2014 are experiments. Maybe try "msconfig" in the Run command-prompt and remove any unnecessary underlying programs.
3DSMax is all about the gpu as far as viewport performance is concerned. ZBrush uses software rendering so its CPU bound. A fast HDD is also important for ZBrush sense it uses virtual memory (its own, not what windows provides) extensively.