Shane,
Sounds excellent, and I'd love it if you'd share your mods, even privately for now (hint).
IMHO there are two major things this hack is missing (besides the fixes you already mention):
Email notification
Color-coding bugs by priority. i.e. critical bugs are highlighted in red, new in yellow, etc etc. That's a huge help when viewing a lot of bugs.
If you want any help with this email me and we can put our heads together. This is a frustrating hack - so good, yet so far from being complete