setting edges hard/soft directly (like in maya or wings3d) is much nicer workflow-wise than smoothing groups like in 3dsmax or milkshape.

i don't mind what method gets implemented for 3dgs though. probably jcl would implement smoothing groups because there is no edge structure in the model format.

hard/soft edges can be converted to smoothing groups by an exporter quite easily (by continuously doing flood fills with hard edges as boundary). converting the other way around should be easy too.