[1.5.2] Backporting a mod to 1.5.2 (lesson's learned)

I started dabbling with mods in 1.6.4, ported my mods (a couple of server commands) to 1.7.2, and recently got interested in making my commands work in 1.5.2 to have them in Hexxit. My mods are simple enough to make the port from 1.6.4 pretty fast. Here's what I had to do.

1. In my mod main class, I had to change @EventHandler annotations to:

@PreInit

public void load(FMLInitializationEvent event) {}

@PostInit

public void postInit(FMLPostInitializationEvent event) {}

@ServerStarting

public void serverLoad(FMLServerStartingEvent event) {}

2. In my commands I had to change all calls of ICommandSender.getEntityWorld() to Entity.worldObj (after suitable casting).

3. I also had to change the type I pass to ICommandSender.sendChatToPlayer() from ChatMessageComponent to String.

4. In my custom block, I had to remove calls to Block.setTextureName() which didn't exist in 1.5.2.

5. In my custom block's override of onBlockPlacedBy(), the type of the player parameter changed from EntityLivingBase to EntityLiving.

Lastly, my mod uses the GSON code that is bundled with MinecraftForge for 1.6.4 and later. So, I had to explicitly include the contents of that jar file in my mod's jar file. Is there a better way to handle dependencies like this? I would prefer sticking to JDK-classes if possible, but I don't believe Sun's JSON support is bundled by default in the 1.6 JDK, which I am targeting.