So it seems there is some interest in getting something like this up and running. I went ahead and did some of the basic "project setup" type tasks. Here are some links of interest...
I look forward to some more discussions about the best way to structure things to make it easy to use. On the google code project site you'll find a brief description of the project as well as a wiki page I've started to give some basic info on how the code base is structured (tools, build targets, etc...). I'm sure all of this will change/evolve as things progress.
And thanks Joe (for already submitting the first patch) and others that have said they want to get involved. Should be fun... :)