3D Model Importers/Exporters Vanish!

Super Sleuth
So, an artist friend of mine and I were fixing to make a small single room game. Low poly models, basic collision detection, small number of effects. Just keeping it simple. I planned and started using jME. We wanted just very basic animation. So we needed to settle on a file format. I said COLLADA, since he was working 3dsmax9. So he eventually conceded to trying to get the plugin, after finding out that .obj is only for geometry. So he download the installer and what a surprise it didn't find his 3dsmax version.

Moving On
So we tried to find a MD5 importer/exporter but the plugin for Max didn't work. So on and on we went trying to get at least something to export from Max and load into jME. And nada niltch couldn't find a single decent plugin. I know from using a few plugins a while back with previous versions of Max it was a pain in the arse. And when exporting there was always a 50/50 chance something in the scene would cause the exporter to break. I recently started working with blender very nice free modeler and game oriented as well. I found that their support for exporting seemed to be pretty good. Although I now know that the updating of those export scripts is very sketchy at best.

Switching Gears
So I decided we'll switch to using XNA Game Studios which has a lot of support and makes DirectX childs play. No the matter became finding an appropriate .x exporter for Max well. While searching for 3dsmax plugin support I found very little at all and couldn't get a hold of the Panda Exporter it seems the site has completely vaporized, and most if not all the forums I checked mentioned that one.

Some Light Shines Through
So my friend was able to find a plugin with a funny little name, kwxport seems to be good from the first glance over. Kind of messed up the wind order and with backfacing turned on in the DirectX Viewer but that shouldn't be a problem since I can control which order it used. But I'm sure that this issue can be fixed.

Here's the nice low-poly hollow man:


It would be nice to know if there are some good exporters out there still for max. That and I've always been curious as to exactly which file formats work the best in commercial or even just quality indie games. So if you know of any please enlighten me?