Hi Kevin, one thing to keep in mind is that sub-d surfaces can also have lumps and buckling in them in various situations as well, your sub-d control cage can't just be a random pile of points and still needs to have well placed points and topology in it.

See here for some examples of the kinds of problems you can run into:
http://www.guerrillacg.org/home/3d-polygon-modeling/subdivision-topology-artifacts

But it does tend to make you constantly aware of the control point structure and encourages you to keep a minimal point count which simplifies things.

If you try to do the same kind of minimal point spacing with your input curves for lofting or sweeping it can kind of have a similar effect of reducing buckling in many situations there as well. If you try to use a whole bunch of curves or a whole bunch of points it usually tends to exacerbate it.

- Michael