As someone who creates 3D models from scanned objects... hah haha hahahahaa. <sob> It's so freaking hard. I wish it weren't so, but it's so frustrating, it is probably the aspect of my job that I enjoy the least. I use a Faro CMM arm with a laser line scanner and polyworks (IIRC that whole package costs about $90k), and you can get decent scans of certain objects without much effort, but it's really hard to get good definition in small details, and some surfaces (shiny ones, transparent ones, ones where light scatters slightly below the surface) and some details (holes, crevices, small protrusions) are really hard to capture. And even still, the resulting model has high complexity... If you want a smooth mesh without holes or other aberrations, that's another layer of work. And if you need to convert it to proper NURBS surfaces, that is yet another layer of work (and one that takes an entirely separate skill set).
I know these technologies are getting better all the time, but that one's still a really hard problem that's waiting for a better solution.