My only option would be to edit the event strings using Res Hacker, thus violating mIRC's user agreement.
Or just script your own events which is perfectly legal. Since I do that I am not fussed about one star or three though I think for the sake of the sanity of those that just have to have it, I also think there should be some compromise here as there's never been an explanation as to why the change was necessary to begin with.
Addition:
Something I have suggested many times before and I'll say it again because once again I might have only mentioned it on the old forum, I think mIRC should adopt what some other programmes have - an internal editor for channe/rawl events. X Chat has one and I think Bersirc has the same thing. This would negate the need for most scripting that is required to 'pretty-up' scripts.
