anyone know a good free polygon reducer?

There are lots of expensive tools. I remember I tried to find something good for free once upon a time and gave up after some time. they may reduce to some degree, but you still end with 4 to 10 times more Tris than what would be possible if the mesh was modeled manually by a lowpoly specialist - with the same visual quality!

Anyway, did you try the Polygon Reduction Code in the COde Archives?