It'd be a tremendously useful asset for modders and 3d modelers to have an archive (a .zip file) (or a separate archives plus a 'full' archive) containing common importable model formats such as .3ds, .obj, etc., for ships, missiles, and other special models.
I imagine the retail versions of these models would be a priority, just because mediavps models are more frequently subject to updates... For most models, I reckon only the highest LOD would be necessary... fighters might also need to have the shield meshes included. As for debris and/or destroyed submodels, I'm not too sure about that...
As for formats, I think the biggest ones are .3ds and .obj, but there might be others common ones I can't think of right now. It is important when converting that vertex positions, texture coordinates, and smoothing info (or vertex normals) are preserved, that everything is properly triangulated, and (depending on the format) that there not be redundant vertices or discontinuous faces.