Thanks sja was hoping it wasn't going to be that way still.
I got blinded by the product overview webpage about how it could handle millions of messages an hour - including SNMP and forward them on.
Interesting that https://thwack.solarwinds.com/ideas/1139 is marked What We're Working On
Off to do some voting - I hope Leon Adato is working on it in the background with the NPM overhaul perhaps, as it was an issue he was voicing back when he was a customer....