Well before I get flamed for posting this, I've been digging everywhere I can on the net for help with this. The exporter built into Max isn't a total piece of crap anymore but it does not export physique/skinning correctly. I have tried ColladaMax NextGen but no success in getting the plugin to even load. If anyone has had any success with an exporter to DAE with skinning and physiques please let me know! Thanks for your time.

Don't know if you already tried that, but I heard the Feeling Software 3DSMax plugin to be worth its name.

Have you tried this one

http://opencollada.org/download.html

In the options it will say next gen, use that and it should import or export everything except the materials correctly(it did for me).