I did a little digging and this might be closer to happening than I thought. Sourceforge is a wonderful thing
http://sourceforge.net/projects/jaimlib/
This is an open source java api that implements AOL's TOC protocol, so I guess step 1 is already out of the way
Oh, and after further reading I discovered that the TOC protocol is offered by AOL to developers. It's their OSCAR protocol that they don't want anyone else using and trillian has been trying to reverse engineer. TOC only supports the most basic features and not file transfers, buddy icons, the new AIM Expressions, blah blah blah..... but TOC is exactly what we need for this. Ok, I think this is the last post I'm going to make on the topic unless someone else shows some interest in it, because I'm probably either annoying or confusing the hell out of most of you that are reading this.
Later,
-Windaen