Actually yeah sometimes even in C4D 11.5 i've had to fix smoothing glitches. Some polys even had to be flipped and
points get welded to eliminate wasted polys. It's like you mentioned, it's never perfect.

But this 3DS Max test was to see if I could find a faster method for use in Max. Since getting the model out of
C4D into max looses the normals as you know. Granted this version is old. I wanted to show that it's not that
bad to repair for those that might not have software that will import normals. As you pointed out even some newer
software can't do properly.

Wanted to also point out Steve's slice method was useful.

What I look at with scrutiny is the underlying wireframe. Since models created in the past were for resale.
I've been testing to be sure the wireframe will look great in all poly software such as 3DS, C4D, LW, etc.

Hopefully my testing is helpful to someone here.