@sudowoodo Just to let you know that as of 3.8-12.04 (testing channel) the add custom SMART parameter option issue has been closed.
Here is a picture to demo the addition of the same -d sat that your drive required; here it enables the smart info on one of a pair of 32 GB Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 devices.
Again thanks for you assistance on this and hopefully we should no longer require hot wiring / jury rigging of custom options for the like of some external usb to sata adapters and their smartmontools kin.