Ah...

Yes, I want the list to have the names of all the poly objects in the scene.
And if you click on one of them you get to control the settings for that object.

And if you creates a Diffuse Material Maya can create and assign a Lambert to the object you got selected.
Phong -> Phong
Specular -> Blinn
ect...
The sliders and color pickers in the Object Editor then remotly controlls the attributes on the Maya Materials.

<Phong>
<diffuse>SLIDER</diffuse>

Controlls the Color attr. in the Phong Material.


Hope this sounds possible to do
And I hope you understood it :p