Cassius,
Tree may seem high in polycount indeed but I do not believe in polygon shrinker, I always had issues somehow where quads become tris here and there, or deformation is such that the model did not remotely look like the original.
Try and see, I hope you get better result.
Though this is not the last step you can use.
You can also go dirty, open the model somehow in a 3D application, look at the mesh model and look at the faces and edges in UV editor, then cut faces or edges and reform where it is convenient to you.
Also you can do some retopology, it is not a traditional method per se on low polygonal mesh but hey who says there is a rule to anything
3D coat is pretty good for retopo, I prefer to 3D coat to Maya 2012 or Max 2012 for example.
Rastar,
Yes I just found Forester yesterday, it is affordable. They have 3 types of license, though the reason why I did not purchase right away is with license aggrement page that I need to re-read again, I was in a hurry and flew over license agreement. it sounded quite strange whereas no matter what happens, assets are foresters property (I hope I am completely wrong and misunderstood everything).