I get the same breaking up of the front no matter how big the texture size is... I tried 128, 512, even 1024. The reasons I am using such a small texture size in the first place are because I don't plan on having the model that close to the camera and having small textures will save on ram, compile size, etc.
The faces were triangulated when I ran the weld, yes, and there are no random or unaccounted for vertexes in the model. I even just double checked now. When I do mirroring in my 3D apps I never leave the mirror tool as is, I always make sure that the geometry is one whole object in the end. :) -Micheal
