autocommit trouble with jdbc on Postgres 7.4

PostgreSQL 7.4 no longer supports server side SET AUTOCOMMIT TO OFF,
thanks to Tom Lane. Problem is my java application server now breaks.
When I try to save a record in the database, I get
"java.sql.SQLException: ERROR: SET AUTOCOMMIT TO OFF is no longer
supported". The code that sends this is jdbc compliant and works with
about a dozen other rdbms including postgresql7.3. Isn't he whole point
of jdbc to make it so clients don't need to be rewritten each
database??? Please don't tell me to change my code code - it isn't mine
and I can't.

Questions:

1) Does this mean that the jdbc driver that ships with pg7.4 isn't up
to speed with the new autocommit change? What about the 7.4 development
version of the driver? Does it properly handle the SQL for the new 7.4
change? I tried it and it also failed, but maybe I installed it
improperly. I simply replaced the existing postgresql.jar file with the
devpgjdbc3-1.jar (renamed as postgresql.jar) and restarted. Didn't
work.

2) is there a version of the jdbc driver that won't send "SET
AUTOCOMMIT TO OFF" to the postgresql7.4 server when I use
Connection.setAutoCommit(false)

3) If there is a driver that works, do I need to do something other
than just replacing the existing postgresql.jar file? I'd assume the
classpath etc would be the same it that case, but I've tried it
building 7.4 --with-java from scratch and also tried the SuSE 7.4 RPM
in addition to replacing the jar file as mentioned. Each fails.

Any clues appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Bob