Right, but that wasn't the question. Having done a lot of work with genetic algorithms, among other things, I have no doubt that I could sit down and write a reasonably useful solution. However, it would be absolutely brilliant if this was already part of an existing shipping API.

I think it would be very useful if these shipping API's accepted package specifications and helped optimize final packaging while in the process of providing a quote. If you want to talk about differentiating a solution, this, most definitely, would.