If it would help, I'd be happy to test this against current Ubuntu versions under groovy/hydro (a groovy backport would be nice). Just let me know which versions I should test and I'll spin up a VM or ten.

Someone should check OSX.

Assuming we find no build problems, do you think that it would be safe to assume that this was a workaround for a "unique" version of assimp on a now unsupported distro?