Multisite Avatars still not usable! Who's going to make the great push?

I'm going to bring the following issue under your attention

http://drupal.org/node/132988

Currently the directory where you can store userpictures is restricted to a map within the directory you've selected for your files
(user_picture_path must reside within file_directory_path)

However, if you're working on a multisite, with a shared database and shared tables for the usernames, seperate settings for file_directory_temp and file_directory_path it is NOT POSSIBLE to have a common pictures directory, thus severely limiting multisite possibilities.

My request is to release the restriction for the user_picture_path, and make the variable in a similar way as done with the file_directory_path (sites/domain/files) and the file_directory_temp (sites/domain/tmp) variable so we can have for example sites/all/pictures (or something else) set for user_picture_path
(user_picture_path side-to-side with file_directory_path)

and remember, this is a actual problem
http://drupal.org/node/254870

I have done a multisite setup like this:

sites/drupaltest.com
sites/site1.drupaltest.com
sites/site2.drupaltest.com

settings.php in each site has been modified to allow sharing some tables across the subdomains:

$db_prefix = array(
'default' => 'site1_', // site2_ etc...
'users' => 'shared_',
'sessions' => 'shared_',
'role' => 'shared_',
'authmap' => 'shared_',
'sequences' => 'shared_',
'profile_fields' => 'shared_',
'profile_values' => 'shared_',
'users_roles' => 'shared_',);

cookie_domain has also been set to allow one time login.

I have also enabled

* Profiles module, and added an age field.
* Picture Support under Adminster > User Management > User Settings

Sequence to generate the unexpected result:

* User1 logins at site1.
* User1 surfs to site2. (he is authenticated at site2, and doesn't have to login again, OK)
* User1 edits profile, and enters 20 for the age field.
* User1 adds an avatar. (Note that he adds it at site2, and Drupal saves the avatar file to sites/site2.drupaltest.com/files/pictures)
* User1 views his profile at site2. (He sees the age field - 20, and also his avatar displayed, OK)
* User1 surfs back to site1, and views his profile at site1. (He sees the age field - 20, but his avatar isn't displayed, NOT OK. A hyper linked text - user1's picture, appears where the avatar should. Checking the URL of this reveals : http://site1.drupaltest.com/sites/site1.drupaltest.com/files/sites/site2...

As a comparison, the URL of the avatar at site2 is:
http://site2.drupaltest.com/sites/site2.drupaltest.com/files/pictures/pi...

Does anyone know what is going on?

I would expect the avatar to be shown across all subdomains, like the profile field values (i.e. the age - 20, in this example)

Thank you.

anyone has any idea when this issue get's the full attention it needs, since i'm currently unable to do that.