The problem with this idea is that network-using static libraries are not supported by glibc.
Errr... what?
Adding a --with-libcurl=/usr/local/src/newcurl option to configure is reasonably simple.
This isn't even needed, because curl gets picked up by pkgconfig (which actually doesn't seem to work, it's rather curl-config that does the trick).
Viceroy, I have tried my static curl twist and it worked,
updated RPMs here. You know which way to throw your coins ;-)