Funnily enough im the complete opposite, Maya is simple and efficient compared to blender… at least for me, I’ve had varying success with blender in terms of the UV mapping just doesn’t work properly when exporting then importing. Compared to maya (which I’ve yet to have a single problem with).
Uv mapping proper for textures is completely different to setting up a UV map for light map, this is something you need to remember from the get go when setting up your UV sets. Uv mapping for textures is usually about trying to keep the lowest amount of islands and splits and to maximise the area. When it comes to light map UV’s you need to need to take into account of the effect you have on the light map when splitting uv’s into separated islands.
Example for a light map uv on a 90 degree angle, normally for a texture it wouldn’t matter if those were joined (and for something like a wall it would be beneficial to join them as it would give better continuity in the texture) but for light mapping UV’s it can have different consequences as the light can bleed from one angle to the next because they are joined with no space it can end up looking weird.