I am think, jquery team can fork another branch for core + CSS code, which supports IE7+ , FF, chrome only. 

I think, jquery code might be more stable and resilient, if we take out IE6. 

Once that forked branch is stable, then Jquery team can give option to users, which version to use. 

Hopefully, users will stop using IE6 compliant version and JQuery team can deprecate their IE6 version. 

PS: The reason, I propose this, as i am starting to develop a prototype using jquery, i really don't care to support IE6. I think, 2011 is year, when we can eradicate IE6.

thanks

Ashish