Just quick question: for what purpose are you looking to reduce the polycount of the model in your animation? If the answer is to speed up viewport performance, or rendering, then you might wanna look at the Point Cache modifier.  It will save out the imported vertex animation to a file, which can then be loaded to a static model, to speed up playback and performance.  It provides a faster viewport response than models which are rigged with bones and skinned.  As long as you're not doing the animation in 3dsmax, then you really don't need all the rigging and skinning information in the scene.  It's only going to slow performance.

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