No I'm saying it's the difference between a true type font and a bitmap font. Still has sharp accurate edges regardless of the size rather than turning into a blocky or blurred representation.
Fonts have a shape with obvious curves, lines, etc. This makes them a perfect candidate for mathematical representation (as in true type fonts).
Similarly nurbs is ideal for mathematically perfect shapes like spheres, and other rounded objects. I'm not arguing that nurbs don't have their place!
What I'm saying is that nurbs are an extremely inefficient way to represent complex organic, realistic objects (like the dragon / bird example above).
For example can you imagine this being done in nurbs? Obviously it can, but to achieve the same level of detail with nurbs, you'd have to use practically the same number of control points as there are vertexes. Maybe I'm missing something, but just how do nurbs provide any kind of advantage in this case?
I know what Rob is saying and John, i don't think you get what he's saying :D
I know he's saying that nurbs can do everything polygons can, and more: they have theoretically infinite detail because they can represent curves perfectly. I'm not disagreeing with this, because it's true, obviously.
I'm simply saying that nurbs as a base for a 3D rendering system would be foolish since the amount of precision they add to curves doesn't make up for the loss in performance for highly detailed objects.