on www.blendercookie.com they offered a freebie low poly mesh that worked with the human meta rig and could be sculpted to the normals mapping to make almost any character

it would take some work on your end but its a 100% free option to paying for subpar meshes that arent good enough to pass muster

i was once a programmer and know that the time is always an issue but the customer comes first which is why i got into 3d modeling   typicaly i do not model people just machines to simplify the process but ive been working more in sculptris and will say sculpting has gotten alot easier