Have an option to use SDL instead of AWT in jogl contexts. Or better yet a plugin system for doing this. It could be possible to obtain a lot more frames from using SDL than AWT. SDL is used in zillions of games and its much more useful, fast (and most likely stable) for games than AWT.
Note that im not sugesting to abolish AWT, but the subject of being stuck, without an option to choose another layer to render opengl contexts is a very big limitation. We were all complaining that Java3D was inflexible and that we couldnt change the bottom layer the api was running upon, but now we are facing the same problem with jogl and the underlying AWT api. The link to AWT is a rigid one and cannot be dynamically changed unless we recompile the entire api ourselves.
Just some sugestion for you guys to thing upon.