Intelligent IGP Link Costing Algorithms?

["Joel Krauska" <jkrauska () gte net>]

Does anyone use intelligent algorithms for determining IGP costs?

It's a widely academic topic on solving a NP-Hard problem, but
I've found most providers tend to stick to simple functions
based on RTT and link capacity.

With bandwidth costs becoming more and more reasonable, it
also seems to have been a simple "get bigger pipes" between 
point A and B solution.

However, with budgets being tighter, I would assume some
more thought has been put in to using more intelligent 
methods of traffic optimization. 
(briefly ignoring the MPLS TE "solution")

An added twist appears to be that a full demand matrix
is difficult to build without large systems of flow 
collection. I'm curious if the problem can easily be 
approached without full insight in to this data.
(per link usage yes, but without end-to-end flows)

I've seen a few modeling applications, but nothing that
attempts to solve the general optimization problem.

Thoughts?  Is there a need for something like this?
Are there existing effective solutions?

Thanks,

Joel Krauska