Blender is FINALLY going to address the custom vertex normals issue. It's a 2.68 release target (among other features), but hey, its at least on their radar.

http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-committers/2013-May/040144.html

Since this is a going to be a 1st class feature (not a 3rd party effort), it should meet everyone's needs.