If I'm missing this, I'm sorry. But My scenes have multiple objects using the same materials with the same names, but they each come into the MatEd as individual materials. This is a huge PITA when I need to change one material then propagate that change across multiple objects.
Can someone write a script that finds all materials with the same name, have the option to correlate the materials to ensure they are actually the same setup (or with in a few parameter close) then use a master material as the new instance material that replaces all other same-named materials.