Needs an option to use non- Javascript version.

Yes, there is:

if (Drupal.jsEnabled) {
  $(document).ready(function() {
    // If you set Drupal.settings.HierarchicalSelect.pretendNoJS to *anything*,
    // and as such, Hierarchical Select won't initialize its Javascript! It
    // will seem as if your browser had Javascript disabled.
    if (undefined != Drupal.settings.HierarchicalSelect.pretendNoJS) {
      return false;
    }
    
    Drupal.HierarchicalSelect.initialize();
  });
}

This isn't documented because you should never have to use this.

The correct way to fix your problem is to update the other modules. Most, if not all modules have already been made compatible with jQuery Update 2.

Also: this is NOT a critical feature request. It's 1) a support request, 2) it's not critical. It might be critical to you, but not for the project.

That's all I ask: think more about it in the future :) Thanks for taking that into consideration.

Maybe the Editable Fields module is not yet compatible with jQuery Update 2 because it's a pretty rarely used module. You could make an issue for it in its issue queue to make the maintainer aware of the problem! :)