I'd like to personally advise that you do not try to work in TS. Having used it, and Max, I can say, honestly, that TS makes extremely unstable geometry very easily.
I have never had any problems with TS myself, in fact I find it easier to use than 3D MAX 7..
You're opinion, but you'll find that few others share it. Especially in comparison to TS 3.2. I have to agree with Raa 100%. The most recent versions of Truespace are usable and can produce stable models, but the free version (which is the only real discussion here) is absolutely useless. It's functionality is not worth the download except as a conversion vehicle, and if you've already got Max then you're taking 10 steps back for one forward especially since it's rare to get a stable
intermediate mesh. And recovering stability in TS3.2 is impossible.
But does it handel the 3ds exporter? Thats what I have problems on, I don't use truespace I use 3DS Max 7. I can't just parent a few objects and get results. THe exporter needs point helpers, paths, dummies and the geometry and I don't know exactly how to link them up. So far the turrets don't read any firepoints.
Best source on making the exporter work with autogen is the example POF that came with the plugin. One of the most important things to remember is that the names of subobjects are important, the other is that the even if everything is right, the exporter will still crash at least 50% of the time. I've got a couple of larger models with the heirarchy set up that I should put up for examples too; PM me if you'd like one of them to look at. Or stick to modelview and PCS, which you can't totally avoid anyway.