I would like to see short sword and dagger added to the list of weapons that a monk can flurry with, perhaps a few others like hand axe, club, etc. Considering that most D&D settings have very little far east influence I think access to these types of weapons would allow the creation of monks with a differnt sort of style (like the picture in beta that has a middle-eastern flair). Players frequently play monk/rogues with assassin styling (not the prestige class) and the use of a sai or nunchuku just seems out of place more often than not.
If the weapon damage isn't higher than 1d6 then you aren't going to make the monk more powerful than other classes (only advantage of short sword is a slightly better crit range) and this way you give players more options in character design. Right now the monk is a little pigeon holed.