Hey, I could create a script that figures out where to put the textures, but the ideal solution would be that I can myself decide such a thing in the model. This is really strange seems like anything one could do won't change anything. Tried changing the order in which I assign the materials, tried with letters and numers on materials names, altering the order of things in the DAE, but as you said, nothing changes ever. Makes no sense to me or we are missing something.
I don't know how to use blender.
Maybe you could do this test:
Create a simple cube and create 6 materials, one for each face with names like A1, B2, and so on. Export DAE with Maya.
Do same in Blender.
Compare and see what changes in both daes?
There must be something.
What do you think?