Since no one seems to jump the queue, I'll post my opinion.
I started my plugin "bufficons" mostly beause of my captain, which became my main char with the RoR instance cluster (because that group content sucks for burglars, IMHO).
I have considered a separate captain buff display, but there are a couple of things to consider:
- you can only identify effects (besides a few non-unique properties) by its name, but not by a generic ID. That means you need to take care of localizations or it won't work. Also translation gets tweaked ever so often, so it will need maintenance.
- there's so many captain buffs. When displaying them all with static location, it's a massive UI element. Only displaying a selection will probably need configurable presets, because at least my captain changes traits frequently.
- writing the UI for all required settings is already a lot of work, and needs yet more localization work.
- turbine announced massive class changes, so by the time you're done with all this, you may have to start all over already.
So in short, I won't start working on a captain specific interface anytime soon. I'd rather work towards fully custom buff icon sets, comparable to what Buffbars features, and have other people develop their own presets they want to share. But that's all still written in the stars...
-edit-
But feel free to fork my plugin, or reuse useful parts.