Blender/Collada scaling problem.

[Trogluddite]

Hi all,
Figured I'd dip my toes into animation, so I downloaded Blender, and imported a few old SU models to have a tinker with.
After a few tests, my first preference was for Collada as the import/export format, as it seems to preserve Components and Groups more elegantly; making the model easier to navigate - until I noticed that in some models, objects were imported at wildly different scales.
I'm guessing that Blender is using the scale that the component was originally modelled at, and the scaling of the component instance is ignored - the vast size differences would then be explained by lots of scaling up and down to get around the "small geometry" problem (many models are 'life-sized' electronics components).
Indeed, making my component instances "unique" and re-scaling within component editing mode seems to give much better results.

But is there an easier way that I'm missing? - and is this generic to all Collada exports, or is SU doing things right, and it is Blender which is messing things up?

Thanks in advance for any help - if it weren't for this forum, the boss would find me out for the 3D noob that I really am!!