I would suggest starting with 2.6 instead. There are so many improvements since 2.5, you’ll want to make sure you have them all. The farther behind you’re working, is the more work you’ll end up needing to do later.
The code changes in your original post are all still pretty close to correct if you want to make paginated hierarchical replies work like Comments do. If you need more help, I can guide you here for the time being. Then maybe we can take that work and turn it around into getting it done for 2.7. What do ya say? 😄
