Low Poly vs High Poly

From observation the mesh looks allot better as a low poly version. When modelling low poly I was seeing how I could work with the soft shaded faces. I noticed that my topology was effecting the strength of the shadows on my mesh.

 Low Poly

SubD

In the SubD version the taper is allot thinner then the low poly version. With the low poly I'm able to work with the soft edges and bring out desired shadows and good form. In SubD if I was to increase the strength of the taper then it can get quite problematic were the low poly vertices would cross over each other. I believe this is part of the reason why the topology was so bad in the last one.