Looking better. What modeling package are you using? Are you manually bending your vertex normals before export out of your 3D package? http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Foliage (It's toward the bottom of the page)
Yeah Normal Thief is basically the same but way slower, and limited to only affecting the normals. Transfer Attributes does much much more. There is a faster mod of that Maxscript, made by Slide London. http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/VertexNormal#Slide_Normal_Thief_MAXScript