Hi, recon. The obj problem is a flaw with the model; if you import it in any other program and it will appear the same... the only real way to fix this is to just rotate your model 😉 .
I'm not sure what you mean about messed up vertex's...
perhaps the model is not smoothed or it is smoothed too much. If this is the case, simply right click the model name and in the smooth tab, select your preferred angle of smoothing. 😄
If you need some extra help with KT, there are a bunch of good tutorials in the tutorial repository. 😄