Things like this would be great, except I'm having trouble with ideas.
I have a few ways of coming up with ideas for tools.
a) Laziness - Look back at things that you had to do in the past that you've found really time consuming that are generally repetitive and mundane tasks. For example, one of the issues I had was getting decent sprite rips, having to rip them myself, which I didn't like and would generally stop me from getting past even a walking engine.
b) Having the lack of ability to do something - Look at the things that you can't do or what prevents you from being able to do such things. For example, unlike you, I can't compose music, I know what music I want to create, I just don't know anything about notes or music theory. So what I ended up doing is writing a conceptual program that would be able to identify such things based on a persons voice, it would use the pitch of a persons voice to identify the note they were most likely thinking of.
c) Just look for issues that other people are having - For example, the basis that I had for the real time map editor idea was the Hyrule City topic in the CP board. Watching how when people made changes they would have to first download a copy of the map, then make their changes (by the looks of things, using paint) and then upload it for all to see which can be very time consuming for small changes, plus there's no way for someone to know when someone else is making changes, so your limited to either one person working on it at a time or having to incorporate all these changes people are making at some point.
d) See what other people are doing - No idea is completely original, if you see something that you like in say, a particular tool which you think can be expanded upon or used elsewhere, you can use that as a basis for tool creation.
I love that real time map editor idea!
Another thing that hangs up great projects(OOT2D) is the graphics. Now, I'm a relative nub when it comes to all that, but what tools could be developed to help that along? Obviously nothing can create the graphics from scratch, but what about... a batch program that takes, for example, Link facing forward and then form the 32 different directions he could face or something like that... you get what I'm trying to say? 
No clue what you're saying. Although, considering that some emulators are capable of dumping geometry as well as textures, you could use that as a basis for map creation. Remove unnecessary polygons with textures that are used for people (clothing, hair textures etc.) and other objects you don't want interfering with the process, then taking the remaining polygons, and using their characteristics in order to generate the map.
