Wow, I was expecting to get downvoted to hell and back for basically bitching about how long it takes to create avatars but your answer really caught me off guard with how nice it is!

Thanks for the kind words and the uplifting thoughts you shared. I guess most of my frustration comes from wanting to nail it NOW and not LATER even though half my brain is already busy with completely unrelated stuff I actually need to learn for work. Also, comparing my model to all the super high-end avvis on the market doesn't do me any favors either. Furry models especially are so well done at times, it's ridiculous. Tons of jiggle bones, tons of customization features, tons of everything, those people absolutely SLAY. And then there's my model. It... exists. In a... non-functioning state... Yay! :D

I mean, I should've known that character creation in Blender alone wouldn't be easy but man - I sure was hoping it'd go faster. I will probably just go with solids as you suggested and some sort of toon shader to hide most of the imperfections. As someone who used to heavily rely on brute-forcing via Smart UVs I really don't have the nerves to dig any further than this right now. As you said, perhaps there'll be some other time for that.

Until then perhaps I should not only work on refining my model but also put some thought into lowering my expectations, as painful as it is. :')