Well, if the GnuCash developers decide to do so, and I doubt they will, they won't take my route. I had to modify a system file, iso_4217.xml, after all. Furthermore, it works by pretending that the target non-ISO4217 currencies do qualify as ISO4217. That just strikes me as an undignified kludge.
They did it before. XAU (for gold) and XAG (for silver) are in iso_4217.xml, which are not part of iso_4217.