4GL Database Feature Question

We have a 4GL application that has been growing in size over the last 6 years, and have a question about fragmentation aware SQL from within the application. Many SQL statements in the 4GL application make reference to program variables in order to return data from the database. Not very unique. Our problem is that this application does not prepare many of these statements, and therefore fragmentation elimination does not occur. That is because the SQL is optimized at the prepare state, and then the Dynamic SQL is opened with a USING clause. Too late for the optimizer to know how to eliminate fragments. We could invest time to go back through the application to change the "Important" SQL that is likely to use fragmentation such that they are PREPARED statements. (Ouch) Does Informix have any plans to keep the 4GL tool current with the features of the database? Or, should I change my future development strategy to ALWAYS prepare my SQL?