Standard installation path for externals, other goodies?

Is there a recommended strategy for installing externals, help files, example patches, object lists, etc. into a users current Max installation? At least on the OS X machine I'm on now, it seems like there's not a good way to get at the directories those resources are in other than specifying a path that includes a specific Max version.

It's not a huge deal to ask end users to simply drop things into the appropriate directories, but it'd sure be nice if there were a good way to install them. Any suggestions? Thanks!