> So, can you tell, when 1.5.4 will be ready?

No distinct plans. Currently following bugs has been fixed in Branch_1_5
since 1.5.3:

- encodings do not work with connection pool
- memory leak with connection pool
- ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException on 64-bit Solaris.

You can take the latest version from Branch_1_5 and build the driver
yourself. At least all fixes in that version will also appear in 1.5.4. I
will wait few more days (maybe a week) and will release 1.5.4 if no serious
bugs are reported.

Roman