It's work in progress a new revised API for http client funcionalities. When it will be operative, old API will be deprecated.
What is missing rignt now is only the curl wrapper for backward compatibility. Honestly I couldn't dedicate much time to it lately, but I've managed to include this task in a project I am working on, so I can give it a little boost.
Refer to http://www.openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=4114386 for complete discussion on the subject.
Best regards
