My learnings in case it helps anyone else....

Indended work flow
Solidworks exported as STEP, MOI converts to lovely quads in FBX import to Cinema4D

Insufficient memory thing really hampered anything complex.

Exporting IGES from Solidworks instead of STEP gave me very similar results in the end, but was much less susceptible to the 'insufficient memory' barrier

Love Moi, really hope we see V4 soon