abstracting the conversion between id3 tags, m4a tags, flac tags
You can just write a simple app with a mapping of each tag name in each format to an "abstract tag" type, and then its easy to convert from one to the other. You don't even have to know all available types - just those that you are interested in.
Seems to me like a weekend-project type of time investment, possibly less. Have fun, and I won't mind taking a peek at your implementation and even using it - if you won't mind releasing it of course :-) .
I'm looking for a resource in python or bash that will make it easy to take, for example, mp3 file X and m4a file Y and say "copy X's tags to Y".
Python's "mutagen" module is great for manupulating tags in general, but there's no abstract concept of "artist field" that spans different types of tag; I want a library that handles all the fiddly bits and knows fieldname equivalences. For things not all tag systems can express, I'm okay with information being lost or best-guessed.
(Use case: I encode lossless files to mp3, then go use the mp3s for listening. Every month or so, I want to be able to update the 'master' lossless files with whatever tag changes I've made to the mp3s. I'm tired of stubbing my toes on implementation differences among formats.)