m4dcow, I get a syntax error at cmds.select(cl=True) thanks for the info about the double clicking on the faces to select everything, thought Trios just ment double clicking the object :) and the merge on the entire object worked like a charm to merge the all the verts with the set threshold, thanks a ton :)
I think, if you double-click the model, it'll select the whole element. Is that the kind of thing you're after? as for cleaning up overlapping verts faces etc.. I haven't really found a good way for it, don't use maya that often though. I once modeled a highpoly plane, and seems like I accidentally cloned the whole mesh…