By "sparse .vmdk file format", did you mean "single file but non preallocated"?
After deploying VM on ESXi, I sometimes still need to download them back to my Workstation for a lot of reasons like migration tests, etc. If I have to make sure the VM will still work inside Workstation, should I keep "multiple file" vmdk format?
By the way, I had tried to upload the VM via Workstation but that wasn't brilliant! So I dropped back to use vSphere client.
I do have the VMware-converter-all-5.0.0-470252.exe but I never use it more than making P2V conversion. Hmm, maybe I should check what feature this software is offering 