Menu system missed in Elgg 1.7? Is backport from 1.8 possible?

I wonder how you do website's menus in Elgg, really.

How you store menu items or how you determine current menu item to make it active for example?

Today I found a nice thread where mr. cash fixed something finally, bringing (awaited) menu system into Elgg core, but only in 1.8th core. So the reasonable question is - how to backport it into 1.7?