If there is a bug biting you, and you can solve it, then start a forum thread on it and link it in the bug report. If the solution is tested in PHP 4 and 5, written using the same Coding Standards as the rest of CI, doesn’t break compatibility and is vetted by a few members of the community, then it is much more likely to get adopted. I agree with you that bug fixing has been on the back burner of late, apologies - sounds like you are interested in helping the community out here, so consider this a formal invitation to help out, we’d love your involvement.
If there is a thread that meets all my above criteria and I’ve missed it, feel free to email me privately (please don’t privately email me about bugs that don’t meet that criteria, it’ll only slow down the process of getting it implemented).
You’re lucky to get the type of response in this thread that you did, from 5 of the most prolific and well known CI community members - I’d cite that as a reason to start contributing back.