I am not aware of any alternative to nut. For APC UPS, apcupsd can be used, but it depends on libusb-0.1 as well. libusb-compat is just a compatibility layer, and I do not expect big issues in it. It even slows down its development, as the implemented part is feature complete, and nobody wants/needs to implement the rest. We should just tell to the customers, that libusb-0.1 full compatibility guarantee is not part of the support. Just the implemented part.