So Daz Studio has a human/creature builder, right? Perhaps in Daz there's an option to lower the subdivision level.
For the cheating part, it all really depends on what your goal is as an artist, and what kind of "quality" as an artist you wish to portray. If you only wish to excel in animation, then cheating on the model part in order to practice animation and show off your moves is standard among animators. If you want to prove your merit as more than just an amateur 3D artist, then you almost
have to take shortcuts in order to compete with the AAA quality artists (because that's what they do). However, don't assume that means less work.
Think of it like this...it takes a lot of work to go from a single vertex to that "finished" model you have on the right, if you did it entirely by scratch, polygon by polygon. It used to be that you had to do all the work yourself, right?
Now take that ratio of work it would have taken, and multiply it by the amount of work you had to do to just generate that character using the software, rather than building it by scratch. Apply that amount of extra work to that generated character through detailing (sculpture software), clothing, props, and texturing with multiple shaders. That's the kind of standard you'd need if you want to take shortcuts like that.
A lot of people take shortcuts in art and coding but don't do any work to supplement it, mistakenly assuming that it's because all of the work is taken care of now. Most times their stuff comes out amateurish, less than AAA level quality. That's because that AAA level increases as more and more shortcuts are introduced. Shortcuts have appeared because the level of quality of 3D art has risen tremendously over the last decade (or vice versa).
Personally I'd never, ever use a creature/character generator for my own art, no matter how big the project. But I'm only a hobbyist
