It's not the bodies themselves that's the problem. It's updating the gear around and over it. Think of something as simple as the strap over the foot on a set of sandals.
With the current club feet that strap could be as simple as 6 tris. Rework the foot into a much higher poly mesh and suddenly that 6 tri strap isn't going to cut it. It's going to need to be remade to correctly fit the new high poly foot model. Now add in your Lala, roe and gender variants and that 1 sandal has spiralled into a not insignificant amount of work. Now multiply that by however many different and unique sandal models this game and it starts getting out of control fast. And that's before we start talking about gloves.