Message1481

It looks like _tostr was added in r2009(http://fisheye3.cenqua.com/changelog/jython?cs=2009) to address http://jython.org/bugs/495602  From that, I don't think we really want to restrict things to basestring only, but actually want to ensure that None doesn't get passed to java.io.File.  

As for replacing javapath.py with CPython's platform specific modules, I'm all for it, but I think it's too late in the release process for 2.2 to make the change.  I'm planning on making the first release candidate next weekend.  I don't think we have enough time to try this out on all of the platforms to make sure it's not broken in some way compared to the existing system.  Please continue working on it and submit a patch though.  I'll happily put it in the 2.3 branch.