I don't beleive the concept that UT2k's skeletonal animations make high-polygon models run like low-rez on UT. Polygons still have to be rendered, regardless of how thier vertex move. UT could handle huge models before, although many frames tended to bloat the data files over time. But that was just system memory and load times, which has little to do with normal in-game preformance. (You just have to wait a few seconds more for start up)
So UT could have handled models with this many polygons, but I choise to keep limits low just to improve load times and make it run better on low end machines. Some people dog my work since they know little about computers, but considering how big U4EvF is, I dare anybody to show me anything that complex that runs that well. :p
U4E for UT2k probly won't be very big. Without Holger, we might not even be able to do many of the previous weapons and stuff. So I'm going gonzo with the polygons. I only hope I can figure out how to get these new models to work in UT.