PLSM Progress, but more questions

I've finally got PLSM2 to a (sort of) functional state. All the maps load into my app and I can walk around. A few questions though:

-the Ray queries don't seem to be interpolated between vertices. When I walk across tiles, I "jump" to a specific height, and stay there as long as I'm on that tile. With the TerrainSceneManager, the queries were interpolated. I've read this is also supposed to be the case for PLSM. Anyone know why this might not be working?

-If I choose the "Splatting" TextureFormat, my polycount skyrockets. I go from ~100-200k triangles to like 2.5 million. Is this normal? I can see that splats would need extra geometry, but a 10x increase seems impractical.

-The Terragen_generated map doesn't seem to page correctly. When it loads, I see terrain-page-shaped holes near me. This isn't really a big deal in itself - I'm not going to use this map - but I just want to make sure there isn't something wrong with my setup.

Thanks for any help. I'm really, really digging PLSM2 now that I've gotten a taste. I hope to post some screenshots of my game once I get the terrain and associated physics converted over.

Edit:
Also, my lightmaps don't seem to be generated correctly. Part of the first row of maps have some light (pure white values) but the rest of all the lightmaps are ambient, with no shadows. What could be causing this?

-the Ray queries don't seem to be interpolated between vertices.
it should be interpolated. Even better than TSM as it does interpolates on stitched edges.
Do you use a RSQ_Height ray query mask ?

If I choose the "Splatting" TextureFormat
The "Splatting" texture mode is a multipass material, so terrain is drawn multiple times. Use either a multitexture texture mode (splatting7) or a shader based texture mode (splattingshader).

-The Terragen_generated map doesn't seem to page correctly.
Cannot reproduce the bug. can you provide reproducable steps ?

Also, my lightmaps don't seem to be generated correctly. Part of the first row of maps have some light (pure white values) but the rest of all the lightmaps are ambient, with no shadows. What could be causing this?
if lightmaps are generated by mapsplitter you perhaps need to play with scale value in the config file.