Theres only so much you can do with SPD
Having all new computers with lots of RAM and a new version of Cinema 4d with SPD and Zbrush at hand I went a little crazy with it as you should to test the limitations of techniques/technology but now I'm starting to see the limitations and then I adjust...thats the key...
I was speaking in SF recently and I was talking about learning 3d... I was talking about not worrying about possible problems or complications until you encounter them... or don't let what you can't do prevent you from doing what you can...
When I get something new I just jump in and push it as hard as I can to get the results I want...if it works I keep moving...if it doesn't I find the workaround and keep moving...
Too many times I've encountered people saying "what if I want to do X" and to them I say while worry about X when you get there... because thats no way to learn..out of fear... you need to be fearless WHILE saving revisions and backing things up as a safety net of sorts...
But yeh back to SPD... I've been sculpting faces and found that I cannot use a 1000 poly mesh with an spd map to push it up to 7 million polys without having weird artifacts so instead of exporting the level 1 OBJ from Zbrush and applying the map to that one I'll export the level 4 or 5 and apply it to that one... YES its more polys in the viewport which will slow animation down BUT you can use the level 1 1000 poly mesh as a proxy while animating ^ ^ and switch it out with the level 5 to render.Brought to you by professional weirdo M dot Strange.