I have the full version of Max 2012. Couple of points. There is Service Pack 2 out for Max. Came out a few days ago, so not sure this will be in the demo version. Also there has been an update to the FBX plug in which needs to be downloaded and installed.

My version, which is totally up to date imports vertex normals and ngons without triangulation. Renders perfectly.

Here is a screen shot of a MoI model imported via FBX which shows that Ngons and vertex normals are handled correctly:





Personally, I prefer Modo using LWO, however I can only do this at work as I don't have a Modo licence personally, just Max 2012.