Hi Clint, 

Long time no hassle! Booleans in C3 were terrible. There really isn't a work-around for the problems it made. Starting in C4, Booleans received a major workover and function "normally" now. 

The best option is to create the shape that you want in the Spline modeler. It will UV map correctly and you can control the density of the geometry on export to .obj.

Did you ever get rid of the disappearing drummers drum kit?

Mark