Well I think Maya has the best approach (at least I was told so as I don't own Maya) and that's pretty much selecting an edge and assinging a hard/soft edge command on it and that's it. Lightwave really lacks a bit of all that vertex normal stuff. There also were numerous user wishes for this for quite some time now...

Well apart from your technique afaik another way to get such an effect is assigning another surface to the specific polies...

EDIT:
@broozar:
Those models aren't mine but they show Lightwave's lack of some "minor" features in some areas. It's also not about how to correct this but that it's quite some annoying work which doesn't have to be there...

Enjoy your meal
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