[3ds max]editable poly or editable mesh?

this may be a stupid question, but what is the real difference between those two? i've heard that editable poly is more powerfull than editable mesh, but what is the real difference. i only see a little change in the interface

 

Since 3dsmax 5, the edit poly mode bring modelling features that editable mesh haven't (fast tools to work on edgeloops (rings and loops selection, connect tool, etc), and other goodies like "extrude along path" that can save time, it's like the Meshtool script but integrated in max, and in poly the soft think in polygons (n-sided) and not in tris (in poly mode, the polygon counter count the POLYGON and not the tris).
i hope i've answered to your question =)

 

Yeah, remember to switch back to mesh, when you want to get a true face count though, sometimes the poly count you are given can be up to half of what the actual face count is.

 

yes JR, it's true, but you can avoid this problem putting a edit mesh at the top of the stack and toggling the end result, if you do that, you'll be able to see the true tris count, you can also download a macroscript (like this one > http://www.juantwo.com/scripts/Macro_PolyCounter.zip ) and assign it a key, it will count the true tris number on editable poly