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#1 To get rid of light leaks, turn light_geometry_scale down. It's gotta be a power of two. There is the possibility that an error could occur before you reach a value of 1.0. If this happens, you need to divide up large brushes into smaller brushes. Lowering this value will make your dif file size bigger because it increases the lightmap resolution, which also gives you sharper shadows. You could also make your walls thicker to eliminate light leaks. I don't know enough about the other parameters to be of much help.

#2 Thanks, Ryan.
You wouldn't happen to have any tips / tutorials on using vertex snaps in 3ds Max to make airtight geometry would you?

#3 I don't have any tutorials... I suggest using vertex snaps, angle snaps, and the align tools to position brushes. If you need to create and manipulate brushes at an odd angle, I would create a grid at that angle (or aligned to some brush face) and use it as my active grid to keep all movement in the proper coordinate system. The main thing is that you don't want brushes to overlap, because this can cause problems, especially detail brushes that overlap structural brushes. It tends to keep things from getting portalized properly. Making your interior "airtight" will not fix light leaks, though. That's a completely different issue. Use the methods I described above to fix the leaks.

#4 Thanks for the info. I didn't realize light leaks were a separate issue. I think I've been making my walls to thin because lowering the light_geometry_scale down wasn't getting rid of them. I just assumed I wasn't aligning things perfectly.