Hi Darren...
Couple of things...
First, what "unnecessary dependency conflicts" are you running into with DTP? I ask because I'm on the DTP team at Eclipse and if you create a bugzilla entry for them, we can look into those. And what version of DTP? Helios?
Second, I'm not completely sure of your use case. Are you asking if there's a way to install driver plug-ins into a running Eclipse instance in a method similar to the way you install new server adapters in WTP or new Mylyn Connectors? Or are you asking if there's a way to expose a driver jar in a plug-in and create a driver template that automatically picks up the jar in the plug-in and pre-populates that?
--Fitz