I've stumbled across something that sound pretty exciting: possibly a 10-11 times faster way to export obj files. However, I'm not savvy enough to be sure if it could be used. Could you take a look at it Face?
http://www.silo3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3849
It has some free source code available and free for everyone
EDIT: Damn, the source code link is gone. But i think i could beg it out of the author if u think it would benefit Softimage/Octane combo.