Yes, that is a known problem. I would post a ticket and hope that it happens soon, rather than forking your own rviz. :)

With PointCloud2 some things will be easier in terms of writing visualization tools, but we haven't started working on 
that yet. I might, if I find some free time within the next month or so. However, all these things will be considered 
"unstable" until they go through a review and a few processing cycles.

Cheers,
Radu.

Patrick Beeson wrote:
> I've noticed that the rviz pointcloud display only handles certain types 
> of channels: intensity, rgb, curvature.  However, there may be other 
> channels, like confidence that the user might like to visualize.  Is 
> there anything I can do to visualize such channels other than: 1) 
> overloading an unsued channel (e.g., curvature) or 2) forking my own 
> version of rviz?
> 
> Thanks,
> Patrick Beeson
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-- 
| Radu Bogdan Rusu | http://rbrusu.com/