Eventhough you make some points that are indeed valid, the 'work-arounds' and/or solutions are less painfull than you think.

From Wings3D it never ever gave me problems whatsoever when it comes to the .3dS format and believe me I can unwrap with Wings3D within several seconds low-poly meshes and under about 20 to 30 minutes with an average high poly mesh. All in all, my workflow is fast enough, but yes it doesn't really work from within the 3dgamestudio programs with the push of a button, but I don't think it should either...

Cheers