John, I think you're missing the point slightly with Nurbs, you still have textures and normal maps in the same way as you would with poly based.
The model I posted doesn't use normal maps. It's all polygons and vertex colors.
I guess we'll have to wait until someone like Mustang posts, but I'm pretty sure nurbs are only used as a starting point when modeling (to add any real detail, they are converted to polygons first). Also, representing models with detail identical to the dragon model above without normal maps would be impossible with nurbs. With normal maps, it would be very hard to get it looking correct since the low-poly mesh on which a normal map is applied has to approximate the model very closely, while being very low-poly. As far as I know nurbs aren't very good for this (unless you want your model to look like bumps-on-a-balloon).
Here's another example of what you can do with polygonal modeling / rendering. Notice the beak, feet, sagging crown, and bone/muscle shapes. Do you think this could be done in nurbs?