Just an idea I came up with for Google's summer of code is perhaps implementing some of the D3DXMesh header files and functions so that we can get on with implementing functions such as D3DXCleanMesh which I believe Assassin's Creed needs.
I have no intention of applying for GSoC however it's an idea I'd like to put into the pot.
D3DXMesh is a small part of D3DX. Unfortunately just implementing this class won't help much games since most games mainly use d3dx for the hlsl compiler. Sure they might also use it for this and other stuff (e.g. matrix calculations and so on) but it isn't its main use. Parts of d3dx could be put up for GSoc but implementing the full dll is a huge job. I'm not sure if there are people motivated to work on this for months during GSoc.
Roderick