Not necessarily; it could just be that I, not having had the option of splitting UV's by edge, haven't had the chance to find it useful (though Farfarer does have a script for it).
RappaTools has an unChamfer tool built in, though it's not free. SyncViews was also working on an unchamfer script a few years ago, but I'm not sure if that ever got released.
I had the same reaction skimming through that ... "Yep, that's everything he's supposed to say about this". That's the same script that everyone who gets bought out says.
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/vertex-normals-stitcher From the "detach thread" again, but this is an even better solution to match the normal directions along splits.
I love how this is looking mate! A question, if i may, how did you place the planes for the wolf's hair? is that by hand? Or is there a script for maya? Much appreciated.
For Maya i found this one quite easy to handle: http://www.supercrumbly.com/archives.php?sid=173 or/and http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/c/abautorig