Here we go

Ok drawing just the polygons from start to end is not enough, in fact if you do this you will see the model screw ups as stated above. (Hojo's head).
Anyways what has been referred to as the 56 pool, is actually the .grp part of the file. (Group) This is very important as it tells you how to draw the model properly. You start at the first group and draw the polys in it, and go through all the groups.
Each 56 byte group contains the info (listed above), for how to draw it, what texture it uses (if it does use one), starting vertex to use, starting texture UV to use.
Now I made a small mistake, the group type should go like this:
1 - Non Textured Triangles
2 - Textured Triangles (with vertex normals)
3 - Textured Triangles (No normals used)
The 100's pool is actually a list of materials that correspond to the poly groups. IE: Use material 0 with group 0.
If ya have any questions lemme know, sometimes I am bad at explaining stuff. My english is also going from being in Japan.
PS: There is actually no small model. Those are Vertex Normals

Battle Models don't seem to use Lighting, thats why there aren't any in them, they get around it by using the Vertex colors in a creative way.