I'm sure application knowledge acquisition is included in Toady's notes, but I'd expect the first opportunity for that to be included to be multi tile machinery, as that may change how things work. It also seems Toady is moving away from workshop buildings towards application zones. Another opportunity for this kind of upgrade would be a fleshed out knowledge system where new knowledge can actually be used for something. However, one of the first things an acquired recipe system would result in is probably an automatic addition of new things dorfs can produce to be applied on a save upgrade (e.g. automatic addition of the ability to produce pedestals and show cases with 0.44.01).
I certainly agree it would be nice to get knowledge of culturally associated item production into the fortress, but it would probably require a bit of a process along the line of:
- The new fortress member must come from a civ with the appropriate knowledge (i.e. race isn't really important: a dwarven civ goblin is basically a dwarf in a goblin body).
- The new addition has to know the applicable process sufficiently well (a hauler from a human civ wouldn't know how to craft human weapons, and a smith apprentice probably wouldn't either).
- Some kind of knowledge transfer would have to occur, either automatically or initiated by the overseer (e.g. by ordering the human civ master smith to teach the knowledge of how to produce a particular human weapon. This, in turn, would require some new process either in the library or in a smithy, and probably involve the other smiths until the knowledge has been assimilated and thus be common to the fortress). Once there fortress knowledge might trickle back to the civ in a similar fashion as animal training does (but hopefully actually leading somewhere, which animal training doesn't really do currently).