A few years back it was looking like COLLADA was going to be quite a big thing, maybe at last a fairly standardized format for getting 3D assets from a DCC package into the tools pipeline of a game. And it looked like a good option for an indie developer that didn't want to lock themselves into a single 3D package by writing custom export plugins.
But I've not heard much about it recently. And Feeling Software, who had supported the format with their Max/Maya exporters and FCollada lib appear to have withdrawn any free versions of those tools.
Is COLLADA seeing much use these days? Are there any free/inexpensive libs/tools to assist in dealing with the format, or are people just reading the raw XML themselves?
Or is there a better option these days - say for an indie developer that wants to get models/animation from potentially Max, Maya, or Blender into their engine? - FBX? Something else?