I would learn how to modify the bootloader

If you really want to work with the latest, go to the Optiboot Home Page and follow the instructions to check out the latest optiboot source. That code leaves less headroom than the code in arduino-0022, so you may have problems shoe-horning other stuff into it.

Also be sure to check out the "issues" database from google code. There are patches and discussion there that haven't made it into the source yet...