The main reason I started with an anticipated polycount of <1k is because I wasn't treating it as a showcase asset, but an unimportant prop amidst other props.
A bit unrealistic since I don't actually have any use for this specific prop, but it's just meant to be practice.
I hate the concept "polycounts are expendable", and out of sheer frustration from endless awfully optimized PC games I condition myself to get by with the bare minimum, and
only then if there is performance to spare begin adding more polys etc.
(Keeping in mind I of course have higher resolution textures and highpoly models to fall back onto if I lower resolution too far.)
Unless it's in first person view, or an important prop that the player will soley be focusing on (pick up the lens objective etc), how important is the outline of the [small] mesh?
In all fairness though, I do understand that this isn't 1999 anymore, and ideally I will need to be making various levels of detail [at least for the models] that can be scaled by the end user should they have more graphical power to spare. Apologies if this giant wall of text seems a little defensive, I try to be thorough with my answers to even simple questions.