I appeal to people involved in "custom models"

[bigfoot]

1. You need python 2.6.2 before Blender 2.49's Calada (orsomething :p) export will work
and with the calada export you can create proper .dae files
2. I also had the problem that my Model Viewer was crashing when I was initialising my model and that was because the model didn't have a texture.

Hope this helps.