streaming replication sent location not advancing - feature request?

Hi,

With wal shipping it is possible to pull the WAL files in advance from the master.
Is it possible to do something similar for streaming replication?

This morning due to VM hardware issues, a couple of standbys lagged (A LOT) behind master

# select * from pg_stat_replication ;
  pid  | usesysid | usename  | application_name |  client_addr  | client_hostname | client_port |         backend_start         |   state   | sent_location | write_location | flush_location | replay_location | sync_priority | sync_state
-------+----------+----------+------------------+---------------+-----------------+-------------+-------------------------------+-----------+---------------+----------------+----------------+-----------------+---------------+------------
...=x8 snipped 
  1758 |       10 | postgres | walreceiver      | 172.26.149.47 |                 |       34798 | 2014-02-04 14:48:51.318344-05 | streaming | 1D0/C49A9BE0  | 1D0/C49A9BE0   | 1D0/C49A9BE0   | 1D0/C49A9B38    |             0 | async

 16072 |       10 | postgres | walreceiver      | 172.26.115.48 |                 |       57152 | 2013-12-07 09:25:21.713723-05 | streaming | 1C8/11B40000  | 1C8/119A0000   | 1C8/11900000   | 1C8/117EDAB8    |             0 | async
(9 rows)

Thanks much in advance,
Amit