Hi westfw,
westfw:
I've been working on the Arduino copy of optiboot, and have a new version that could use some testing.
Hex file (for m328) attached. Source and stuff at https://github.com/WestfW/Arduino
Yesterday I started a new optiboot clone at google code which includes almost the same changes to the original optiboot you also mentioned 
My main focus was to integrate the BlueController board in the Arduino environment. The BlueController includes a Bluetooth module BTM-222 onboard (just like the Arduino-BT), but using my modified optiboot bootloader, the download of sketches works much more reliable as on the Arduino-BT!
Some additions were necessary for the BlueController which can be useful for any other boards which don't support auto-reset, even for the Arduino-BT. Currently I use the #define BLUECONTROLLER to distinguish between the BlueController board and other boards, but it makes sense to use multiple #defines for hardware specific code (like the LED pin number) and the support of the longer timeout for boards without auto-reset.
Is there a reason using GitHub instead of Google code? I wanted to merge back my changes to the original optiboot branch, therefore I used Google code. The most obvious advantage is that my project is directly linked together with the original project. Actually I wouldn't have started the new clone if I had seen yours before.
Michael