In 3.5, I house ruled that elves got automatic training with scimitars instead of longswords and could apply Weapon Finesse to falchions and glaives if proficient. It was synergistic to their inherent Dex bonus. The idea hit not from Drizzt, but from the way elven warriors were depicted in The Fellowship of the Ring film.
One thing that kind of bugs me is that mechanically, D&D keeps associating elves with longswords and more recently rapiers, but the art department tends to depict them with scimitars.
On another note brought up earlier, it would be nice if they used terms a bit more consistent with history. They typically describe a falchion as a two-handed scimitar. However, that term, IIRC, actually referred to a weapon more like a large cleaver, wielded in one hand, and used more to hack at an enemy than to fence with them. Same issue with the fact that a longsword is historically a 2-handed sword and what D&D calls a longsword is just a "sword" or an arming sword.
Moreover, I think it would be nice if weapon choice meant something, at least to fighters and other warrior classes that have an array of options. If a longsword, a flail, and warhammer all do 1d8 and are wielded in one hand, why pick any one over the other? I thing damage type vs. armor gets a little too complex for my tastes, but I kind of like how 4e attempted to give a unique property different hand weapons (swords had a +1 to attack, axes were high crit, etc.)