Oh yes, I forgot to mention this!

Change the model to an editable poly (rather then mesh) so you take advantage of the 'safe delete' (highlight and press backspace). This will allow you to remove edges and vertices with out deleting the faces they are attatched to (it effectively automatically redraws it). Done in the right way, this can free up loads of faces with out screwing up your texture mapping. Sadly it can't be used everywhere, but it can save alot of time.

There are other useful features in poly mode that are worth checking out, but you can run into issues converting between poly and mesh, so be careful on the more powerful tools.