Check the maya commands documentation. There's commands for selecting by uv shell and you can assign vertex colour very easily. It should be a relatively simple script.
From what i've read here and there, the biggest new feature seems to be a circularize script. Max, Blender and Modo are no longer valid competitors with such a huge innovation :)
Xnormal also comes with a tasty photoshop script that can do the same thing, and works very well. Worth a mention in this now undead thread. *BRAAAAINS*