Hi Michael

> XSI will read in vertex normals from an OBJ file though, so I think that OBJ will work better for transferring from MoI into into XSI rather than FBX.

Personally I think i might prefer this new exporter. It is a hassle sometimes to fiddle with the obj export options to get points to line up(if you remember http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1723.6)
If the fbx exporter does that by default then it will save a lot of time during cleanup of objects to make them sds friendly. Seams can all be welded in seconds as you know so they are not really an issue.
Moreover it is practically impossible to export a planar ngons like your second example to obj. It ends up a royal mess especially in max and crashes xsi 80% of the time
So seeing this exporter was quite refreshing to me. looking foward to it ..and the layer system ha!