Couldn't you almost instantly have a "non-trivial" amount of the network converted by just getting [Tycho] and Slush (and maybe a couple other 500GH/s + pools) to have committed to being updated? And perhaps check with Vladimir or a couple of the other big solo players?

With how centralized people have chosen to have mining be, I think it should make this sort of update quite simple.

Also, on a side note, I would personally like to see the ability to include smaller transactions in general included in a release very soon (at least 3 decimal places, preferably 4 especially if that is the transaction fee limit.  I think one should be able to see and work with those fractions of coins in other ways as well if they can be used for fees.)

That's my .0005 BTC.