I like the idea of more helper functions, too!
And a native B3d loader sounds good. I may have better luck with it than the others...

Newton is a great physics engine
Very stable and reliable, and it has the best free convex hull implementation I've found! (And it's possible to cancel a collision, which means we can have effects like holes going through objects!)
I think it's fine to keep it as a seperate module, since interfacing it isn't too difficult and doing so manually ensures that no resources are wasted when it's not used.
A seperate simple integration module or some such could be the very best way...

Do you plan to keep IrrB3d going with these changes?

a) i will not be incorporating IrrB3D into the new base Irrlicht mod.  my goal is to stick to the original design of the mods meaning it will try to match the Irrlicht API as near as possible.  i just want to see if i can design it better and make it easier for the Irrlicht users

d) yes newton was my decision on physics libs.  i actually already have Pub.NewtonGameDynamics probably about half done.  enough for simple collision support similar to ColDet and way easier than just the extern'd functions.  its WIP so i havent released it yet.  my plan is to document what i have and release it as version 1.  its design is very similar to the 3Impact mod where it has types underneath the functions allowing for folks to use newton as it was designed or to take a OOP approach.  also similar to 3Impact, it has a type factory so all the underlying types can be extended.  still, see answer to a).   newton will stay a seperate mod.  when it matures a bit and the physics functions are all wrapped up, i plan on writing some interfacing types to go into gg.IrrAddons.

a) im going to join the two mods into a single mod called gg.Irrlicht.  i dont think anyone is using them seperately so there is no point to keep them seperate.

b) im going to drop the T_irr (this one is going to make some folks happy )

c) im going to implement some helper functions for some of the more common create() functions similar to the 3Impact mod.  for example, instead of using T_irrVector3df.createFromVals(1,0,1) you would do something like _VECTOR3D(1,0,1).  for color instead of T_irrSColor.createFromVals(155,155,155) you would use _SCOLOR(155,155,155).

d) fix any casting that may not be accurate (similar to the animation node fixes).

please, reply with any and all suggestions   please keep in mind that the goal of the Irrlicht mods are to be as consistant as possible with the Irrlicht interface.