Oniguruma and 1.8.x

I have started playing with Oniguruma a little.

My first two questions deal with building it with 1.8.

1. One of the five patches failed and I had to apply it
manually. Can we get this fixed in some way that will
work for all 1.8.x?

2. Would it be possible/practical/desirable to distribute
Oniguruma as part of 1.8, built optionally? Something
like ./configure --with-oniguruma ?

Thanks,
Hal