I think this is straightforward request. Benefits are obvious, yet I will list some:
* current Thunderbird add-ons is very outdated
* helps to spread awareness of Thunderbird among Firefox users and add-on devs
* enables the possibility for creating themes compatible with both Firefox and Thunderbird
* makes it easier to publish Thunderbird extensions based on existing Firefox add-ons.
This would also help to enable Thunderbird support in Firefox Color (see https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/update-and-improve-firefox-color/idi-p/62017 for details).