Ok, unless I'm a unique case, I think I might have figured it out. I decided to look at a few models made by other people, namely WZ and FoaS, cause theirs were the most readily available on my computer, and I discovered something.
While concentrating on one edge of the saucer of the ships from both respective modelers, I'm noticing duplicate verts as well, in the same manner as my Demphir, which by the way, the smoothing is intact now in SFC format.
I'm thinking maybe this is how the models are supposed to be.