Marc Schmitt

It's hard to say, what's going on without an actual file. I never had these issues. It sounds way too long.

Is it the loading or the displaying that needs as long? Is the traditional OBJ context faster?

Is it possible that you have copied houdini's native sphere primitives or packed geometry? If yes, these should be converted to 'real' polygons first to be recognized by most other applications or even 3rd party renderers. I suppose, this happens in the background as well, when you activate these switches?

Labs Axis Align.

It's just very convenient.