Quote: "it's a vertex based animation, so you wont get the animations in anyway. You would need to attatch them to a skeleton and animate them all over or attatch them to a pre animated skelton of the same type."
I hate to be the anooying voice of...um... annoyingness, but FPSC does support vertex based animation. I used to use vertex animation when I first started using maya and it transfers to FPSC fine. The issue would be getting the MD2 file to export all the animations into 1 X file, as opposed to separate files.
Quote: "maya doesnt work, 3ds max doesnt work ex."
Yikes dude, you must be gutted, what with spending over like £8K on 3D programs, and ot being able to use either of them! Don't you think it would have been an idea to check the import/export formats before you blew all that cash?
Incidentally if you're using a version of Maya below 7 you can download a MD2/3 plugin, as well as a .x plugin, which should cater to everything you need.
Quote: "low poly count = easy rigging"
I disagree. Perhaps it'll be easier to rig, but it'll certainly be harder to get the animations smooth, with little deform.