I am new to this list - I am wondering if there are any 
active/semi-active developers currently working on the Java 1.5 
packages, as I would like to help out.

Welcome.  There are several such developers lurking here, as well as
non-official developers (like me).  Much of the work lately has been on
stabilizing the Java 5 and (eventually) Java 6 environments on Gentoo.
In that vein, there is currently a package-freeze in place while that
stabilization work is in progress.

To get you started on recent history I suggest you check out the mail
list archives for this list at gmane:

http://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.java/cutoff=810

Thanks for that URL.

I did manage to get Java 1.5 (sun jdk) + tomcat 5.5 running, via a combination of gentoo-experimental and axoo overlays, plus a couple of odd hacks (and an 'inject').

If you guys need help with anything specific, let me know...

cheers,
Mathew

PS. The java-config concept of symlinking /etc/java-config/system-vm is cool - I think a similar technique could also be used for Flash vm's.