I think part of the reason it is better is that I am getting a bit better(?)
All that aside, she was a completely new model and spoke very little English; not much better than my French...
This meant we had to tell her / show her how we wanted her to pose on every shot. At the beginning of the shoot, it was impossible to get her to smile and show any teeth at all. The #1 shot was the first one of the sequence and I did something goofy, which brought out the smile, so I took it. It definitely shows her personality much better than when she strictly tried to "model". Somehow the current fashion seems to be something that we refer to as the "f**k you!" look, so that is what the girls try to deliver.
As for the crease in the arm; it's quite a bit less noticeable in the original, full-size image and I have dodged it a bit. This is part of the problem with the downsampling algorithms; they tend to accentuate some of these areas. That being said, highlights and shadows define shape and muscle structure, so the more I shoot the less heavy-handed I get in my retouching as these areas start looking retouched quite quickly.