I've read up on smoothing group issues both in these forums and on various Blender forums. I am convinced that it should be possible to have this plugin import a mesh that stays connected *and* keeps the proper smoothing.

I was introduced to a method that does exactly that by TFA many months ago. I have since tested the method on several models and got someone else to run his own tests. The method works.

The method is described here: https://sites.google.com/site/zeqmacaw/tutorials/importing-smoothing-groups-into-blender

Would you implement an automated form of this in the plugin? Note that there might be a need to warn the user that it could take longer to import higher-poly models.