I am in the process of determining which model format is the most optimal for Away3D. To do this I have written a small application that will load a sphere 3D model saved in multiple different formats (3DS, ASE, DAE, OBJ, AWD and AS), and then uploads the time it takes to parse each format to a public google spreadsheet, which you can view at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tJ7dFDYWM4n6F74Z25BJq5g&output=html.
I would love to get some data from other PCs. To participate all you need to do is go to http://webdemos.sourceforge.net/Away3DDemos/ModelLoading/ and let the demo run through (it is a fairly large SWF file, and there is no preloader, so just be patient while it loads for the first time). The source code for the demo can be downloaded from http://webdemos.sourceforge.net./Away3DDemos/ModelLoading/PublicModelLoadingSpeedTest.as
