Available from JBoss v3.2.7RC2 and v4.0.1RC2 there is a new DeploymentService.
It uses apache-velocity templates and it allows you to generate deployment descriptors or more complex deployment and move them in and out of ./deploy.
Read more at:
http://www.jboss.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=DeploymentService
You may extend the DeploymentService by writing your own templates. This is described in detail at:
http://www.jboss.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=WritingDeploymentTemplates
The service is not installed by default. To install the service, "cd docs/examples/varia/deployment-service", then run "ant".
This will create "server/default/conf/templates", that contains an example template that can be used to create jms-queues and "server/default/deploy/deployment-service.sar" that deployes the deployment service itself.
Feedback is welcome!
Discussions on its further development are here:
http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&t=55637