After updating to release 202.1.0, I noticed that the smoothing group was not exported properly and resulting in the exported USD to look faceted . I have not encountered such issue when using the older connector 202.0.0. Thank you.
I am glad to hear switching back to the older connector works fine. However, we will of course investigate the new version for this issue. However, as mentioned, please try to use the Native USD support in 3dsmax, which should be vastly improved. You said you are using 2023. If you can upgrade to 3dsmax 2024, or even 2025, I know there is even more native usd support.
And here is the same file exported as NATIVE usd from 3dsmax 2025, using the Autodesk 0.9 usd plugin. You should update your 3dsmax 2023 to 0.9 usd support.