wanting to rev the mod_dav provider API

[Ben Collins-Sussman]

I've been implementing new locking features in subversion lately, and 
running into bits of pain here and there with mod_dav's provider API.   
After some discussion with gstein and jerenkrantz, we're thinking about 
revving the provider API to alleviate the pain.

Because mod_dav.h is a public API, it's not clear how I would proceed.  
Especially since we'd want to backport this for a 2.0.x release without 
breaking binary compatibility.

I'd like to know if this process is kosher:
   1. rev the mod_dav provider API in httpd's /trunk
   2. create new "vtable2" structures in mod_dav.h
   3. garner votes and backport to 2.0.x
   4. release 2.0.53, and make svn 1.2 require it.
I'm guessing that in both /trunk and httpd-2.0.53, mod_dav would 
advertise itself as accepting *either* version 1 or version 2 
providers.  mod_dav_fs would still work as a version 1 provider, 
mod_dav_svn would be a version 2 provider.

(By the way, yes, the backport is necessary.  It's not an option for 
svn 1.2 to use httpd 2.2;  because apr 0.9 and apr 1.0 are 
binary-incompatible, it would break subversion's *own* compatibility 
rules to use apr 1.0 any time before svn 2.0.)

Confused yet?  :-)
Can folks shed some light here?  What's the proper procedure here?