Hi zuzu,

1) Well I'm trying to get the best result with the less possible polys too, what I often do is
- lowering the 'Angle' until I'm please with the outline shape ... I often work between 3 and 6. (sometimes 2 for printing output render)
- then I play with the 'avoid smaller than' parameter, to remove as much poly as possible ... I often close-up fillets to check how it reduces high density area.
The value depends of course of your model size.

2) Max allways counts the number of triangles in the polygon count report, so a 'n-gone' that count for 1 poly in MoI can be a collection a many triangles.
You can temporary use the 'triangle only' mode the check the exact 'max' polygon count before exporting.


BTW good news, looks like max 2010 has finally a valid .obj importer, I didn't had the time to do a lot of tests, but vertex normals looks perfect so far :)