imacrabpinch

First post. If there is another thread or video tutorial that helps answer my question, please link me. I try to avoid lazy questions, but I figure I'd jump into this one since I haven't found anything concrete. For the last month or so, I've been learning the 101 of creation with clothing and other items. I've spent countless hours learning many aspects of blender and other programs like Zbrush, MD, and various other programs with use of Avastar. I understand the basics of modeling, UV unwrapping, baking, and even using high poly models to transfer detail to low poly models. I've more or less established a comfortable workflow at this point. One concept I am still struggling with is the idea of polycount, LoD, and upload options into sl. Whenever I read about this, it seems to differ from what I am seeing in world. I've been getting in the habit of inspecting some of the most popular items from the most popular stores in second life. While there are many items that have a reasonable tris count, many of the more popular stores seem to have (what I would consider) high poly counts for the item. For example, a pair of dress pants with a 40k tris count seems a bit high in my opinion. The other day I was lagging a bit, only to discover the shirt I was wearing was at a 60-70 k tris count (and was sold at a popular event). On the other hand, I've seen some very high quality items at more reasonable poly counts, like 7k for a nice, highly detailed jacket. Another thing I notice is that there are many clothing items from popular woman's stores which use solidify with complete inside geometry. I guess this makes some sort of sense if the clothing is skimpy, because the poly count won't go overboard, but it is still against what I read on here and in videos. I guess what I'm asking is, what is considered acceptable by the community? Should I have an aim to the polygon count? Actually, I feel like my models so far have been too low compared to what I've been seeing. Also, when uploading into second life, I've seen a lot of different practices. A lot of what I see, and what I've seen other creators do, is simply to ramp it down on lowest/low, and keep the mid to high settings default (or even ramp up the mid). I know there are probably concepts around this, but this is what I see practically. Is there a land impact amount to be shooting for? A poly count to be aiming for? I know the general rule of thumb is to keep it low, but some successful stores are making 70k tris count shirts, what is really acceptable? Thank you very much for the help!