I concur with @ullreym that the “dirty subsurf” method of beveling everything is a decent way to get to sculpt mode faster.
One thing to keep in mind once you’re done adding sculpt accents: All the little nicks and cuts you modeled in the base mesh (as I did in the treasure chest course) – those could possible be removed in the final model for each fence piece. This would optimize the geometry where such details would only live in the normal map. Food for thought!
