Cylinders all the way, in fact the whole body often starts off as a single cyliner. I take 1 cylinder, and decide how many sections will be in the legs, then the cylinder is used for leg for those segments, then when it gets to the crotch, I unweld and open up the cylinder, then after so many chest segments it goes onto the shoulder and arm. The head tends to be segmented cylinders too, with lots of face turning in 3DS max and tweaks. Once this is done, I mirror the body to make it whole.
Having a seam all the way up the belly and down the spine is actually fairly helpful, especially for the back. You can use that split edge to lay out the basic shape then mould around it. I find that this cylinder method lets you control how many polygons are in use at all times, because at X segments on a Y sided cylinder, we know how many polygons that requires and can pre-decide the detail levels to stay in full control. It's quick too, not that I'm putting any other methods down here, I just find that having those cylinder segments make it real clear how your object is being formed.
