How many polygons is the engine able to draw?
There is no limit. Okay, almost none: The only limit is your hardware. So push out as much polygons as you need, as long as your game is not getting slower. Some people keep asking me why there are only 10000 polys in the techdemo as maximum. This is only because I did not want to include a huge quake 3 level, making the SDK download size bigger. If you want to see the engine render more polys, just replace the demo level with another one, and see for yourself.