I'm folowing this guide located here: http://www.polygonblog.com/3d-monster/ and I noticed that all the quads are flat in the guide, but in my version, they are all harsh and triangular:

I am following the guide correctly (I hope) but my quads come out all triangular even though I am doing the same process. I am shift dragging edges (is this the same as Extruding in this case?) but the triangles than constitute the quad are not coplanar...

I'm not a max user, but no, in the picture they are smoothed with smooth groups to all polygons, yours is showing faceted triangles, try doing an auto smoothing groups if you want to display hard custom edges.

Dang it, How did I forget about SGs... I am disappointed in me....

I guess I must have gotten confused when it says to extrude the arm and it came out wrong since its not a planar quad.