You may want to bevel selectivly, by chosing the edges of your choice and then do the bevel action.
You would want to chose several edges in one bevel-action, to get a good result.
And...
If you use the "edit polygons" --> Normals-->"soft/hard edges" after picking several edges for smoothing, you may (of what I have learned) get some wierd results (or maybe I simply messed it up), but if you choose the edges selectivly, and chose the right ones, you get to smooth the edges perfect.
This is not a perfect answer but, I hope this is of some help for the moment.
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