That's exactly the treat I mentioned...couldn't find it, though ;) But as I said, you'll loose the new ePoly features introduced in 2011, for example Ring/Loop Selection for Polygons/Vertices.
He could use a little spine curvature and at least a little definition on his chest - its perfectly straight vertical as it is. Hands and feet are both a little on the small side too.
Your proportions are also off. The crotch is roughly in the middle of the body (vertically). His arms also look too short. The triceps are also sitting too far forward. Referance! :)
If you use Max 8 or Max 9 you can use the skin utilities. It will save the skin data to a new mesh, which is the same as saving the weight of the vertices by position.
Smoothing groups, shaders and number of vertices also matter. I remember one time, I ended up giving all of my models 1 sg in Max, and the performance sky rocketed to Neptune and back.
The little patch has been duplicated. I haven't exactly connected the vertices of the LP together, so I think that's why it's causing the patch to be duplicated both on the top base mesh and the mesh of the patch itself.
Is this what you're trying to achieve with the edges of the modular pieces? If so, try detatching the side faces so they're not affected by the bevel and data transfer. You can join them afterward but don't weld vertices
Go to your lowest sub div (or one of the lowest) and use the move tool to move the vertices around. When you go back to your higher sub-d you'll find it all moved as well.
They're getting long thinnies along all the sides tho. Best to cut up those long quads while you're in there adding those edges to the top. Yes it'll add vertices, but they aren't the bottleneck.
Clearly you should've sold this tutorial to gnomon workshop. Gnome matter, there's always next time. @Mant1k0re: Marmoset viewer tells you that when you view single channels. Triangles: 46,152 Vertices: 23,601