>>>Hi rom, so it's not that the skinny tris are reversed exactly, it's that the n-gon that they are carved off of is non planar enough that they are ending up pivoted quite a bit.

This is precisely what I'm trying to describe (maybe a bit awkwardly - due to the language barrier :) from the first post. If the exporter generates thin faces rotated approx 70-90 degrees to the surroundings (yep, see skinny_pivot1.png) - it will look cr@ppy virtually in any
DCC\Renderer (BTW in Max I use Vray (Vantage) - I declared it earlier, the model was created in vanilla MOI v5, but I think v4's Exporter would generate the same faulty topology)
I just humbly suggest that mesh exporters should to pay closer attention to the seams between sub-surfaces (seams between fillet and cylinders in my example). IDK, Maybe dedicated (visible or invisible in UI) vertex weld radius, aspect ratio, angle between faces settings.
Regards,