Great question, we’ve been doing the same work around (in Felix/Karaf/Servicemix4.2) and have been searching for a better solution. Here is the response that I got back from the Felix team…
http://old.nabble.com/Can-the-thread-context-classloader-issue-be-solved-at-all–td28260809.html#a30704352
Essentially, they say that there isn’t a better solution at the moment.
However, I do see that Equinox references some other options including “Buddy Policies” and using a “Context Finder” here…
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Context_Class_Loader_Enhancements
If anyone knows of other options or even a roadmap to resolve this in the future, please let us know…