It's kind of pet peevee of mine, but 3D graphics could really play some role in 3D CAD stuff. But that needs better controls too. Mouse moves on your desk which is essentially 2D plane, and that makes it difficult.
i think a mouse move with a "apple-esque" for lack of a better term of a pinch to zoom out or a reverse pinch to zoom in would be the way to do something like this. I know the learning curve would be kind of steep and would require a magic mouse sort of device, but it is becoming more and more intuitive.