it is a shame that these parts are "locked away". Even the FFS could be speed up by using a smarter block allocation algorithm, and all the "NSDPatch" madness could also be avoided just by having an auto-detection algorithm for the supported device extensions.
Haven't you been able to contact Heinz Wrobel? Jens spoke to him quite "recently".. well... two years ago. However, you might want to ask him for an email adress or a telefone number?
http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?t=35803
