I would consider the Milkshape 3D format, MS3D, it's binary and fast to load and much easier then 3DS.
I have written my own format for Phoenix through, but that's just how i roll.
And for polygon count, in recent game the trend is to use fewer polygons then a few years ago and using normal mapping and other effects to raise the quality. I would say that 10-20k polygons per model is nothing impossible.
There's a nice list of vertex count here
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=43975
And you can check the code for my MS3D loader here: http://andreaznas.dyndns.org/phxModels.7z
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