Asterisk 1.2.17: redirect a ringing call

We have an AGI-Application which routes incoming calls to various extensions using the redirect action of the manager interface. This is done before picking up a call, so we send the ringing call directly into another extension using the manager redirect command.

Since Asterisk 1.2.17 this does no longer work, the channel is hung up with the message “Redirect failed, channel not up.”. According to the Changelog this is a bugfix around line 888 in manager.c:

    [quote] * manager.c: If the channels acquired using the manager Redirect
      action are not up, then don't attempt to do anything with them.
      It could lead to weird behavior, including crashes. (issue #8977)[/quote]

The solution is of course to pick up the call before calling the redirectAction, but in some cases I want to let the other application decide whether to pick up the call or not (and in this case let it ring forever).

Is this intended behaviour or a bug? At the moment I have to do a version check and then pick up the call if the minor version is above 16, which is rather ugly.