Relax is nice if you want the surface to be FLAT flat, like on a side body panel. Around curves, you'll probably want the vert-by-vert method, although there's some sweet Maxscripts for speeding this up a bit. Check out: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/straighten-edge . To use that one, I'd do a loop…
What about Set Flow under graphite>loops>set flow (edge sub-object mode)?..usually it'll give a nice smooth result (you can press it a few times to get more relaxed edge flow, it's not gonna make it flat like what relax will do). _Revel