3D Gladiators Forums - Polygonal Detail vs. Texture Detail

I am trying to dust off my modelers and get back into modeling. I was never spectacular at it, mainly due to a lack of patiance and over-ambitious goals. I want to model those massive starships such as seen in the old Star Wars/BSG era, with all the nurnies and greeblies on the hull - but always get bogged down in those details and frustrated. I hope to actually overcome this and finish something this summer.

One thing I have come to realize is that there are two distinctive camps when it comes to detailing a mesh. On the one side, there are those who prefer the greeblies and nurnies to be actual polygonal pieces of the mesh. This is how I would like to construct my models. On the other side there are those who are happy leaving the the azteching and plating to high detail texture maps. I was curious what some of the opinions and preferences of other modellers here were, and some of the reasons?