Thanks for the suggestion. That's how I was doing it before this patch and it works. I'll keep doing it that way if this patch isn't useful to anyone.
Since org-imenu-depth and org-imenu-get-tree could also be handled by users setting imenu-create-index-function to their liking, I assumed that some pieces of imenu integration were open to patches. Other modes with hierarchical structure, like C++ and Java, create imenu items without hierarchy rather than recreating the class hierarchy in the menu. That made me think that users other than myself might prefer a flat imenu in Org mode too. For that reason, I'd still like to have this patch included.
I have a couple other patches for imenu integration which clean it up and make it more consistent with behavior elsewhere. What's the project's view on patches like these? I don't want to waste anyone's time if they're discouraged by policy.
Thanks for your time.