I've tried asking people about adding new features to the Play 1.2.x code, but the developers have firmly said that they would no longer add features to the 1.x line :(
Play is begging to be forked, specially as the developers' vision diverges from that of Play 1.2.x users. We have a big ERP app built on Play 1.2 and have no interest in moving to Scala and 2.0. Our version of Play is, for all intents and purposes, a fork.