#3 - SketchUp does not give any control of normals. I think they always face the same direction as their face. Unless the edges is smoothed, then I think the normals average between the normals of the 2 faces. I think.
Have you tried SceneExporter, either to do what you want, or as an example of how it could be done? The Pro version will hopefully have the Save dialog working soon.
I think the defacto standard in this forum is that the original poster (e.g. you) edits his/her first post and adds [Solved] to the beginning of the title, to let people know there is a solution in the thread.
I could be wrong, though, since I'm also quite new here...