The problem isn't concerning immediate plugin compatibility with jQuery 1.9 (though that would be nice), it is more to do with active/ongoing development of any particular plugin.

Our projects, probably like many others, use a small collection of plugins which, over the years, we have come to use without much thought (shame on us perhaps!).  They can often be defined as simple, small plugins which do one thing very well. A good example would be the jquery.media plugin.  This plugin has done a great job for us (i.e. it does just what we wanted), but it has also been very stable - the last code update was, according to GitHub 2 years ago.  Please note, I'm using the media plugin as an example - there are many others of similar standing.

My question is, how are other developers handling this type of scenario?  Are they waiting - hoping that an update will come along?  Contacting the developer to ask for clarification (must be irritating for the developer)? Trying to find an alternative plugin?

More generally, how can you tell of a plugin's development is active/ongoing?  Is there a better strategy for ongoing plugin usage and support?