Is it possible to write a plugin that makes nearest chunks load first? It seems like this should be how it works already. Bonus if priority can be given towards chunks in the direction you're looking.
To my knowledge Minecraft already does this... why would it work any other way then loading nearest chunks? That would be completely redundant. And when you play you can tell that priority is already given in the direction you are looking, look one way when its loading chunks then turn around you can see there is less loaded and it starts to load in that direction. According to this plugin dev; in vanilla, chunks ARE in fact loaded nearest to you, as his plugin has them load where you are going to be not where you are. This plugin may be what you are looking for though. EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
I'm fairly convinced that chunk load negotiation comes from the client and you can have this functionality by installing OptiFine mod to your Minecraft... but I can't be 100% sure if it's not a server-side thing EDIT: ok, I was probably wrong but the OptiFine tip remains :-D
I've had optifine before, and for reasons which I don't understand, it made a mess of chunk loading. But I can tell you for a fact that chunks are not always loaded nearest to you. Try exploring a flat world on a low bandwidth server, it's completely evident. Maybe I'll just have to see if I can write the plugin myself.
