XSLT transformations fail with JDK 1.5

I work with projects that invoke XSLT from maven.xml. To make these work with Sun JDK 1.4.x, I have to set, inside maven.xml, the system property that specifies the XSLT transformer-factory class from Xalan: this works. To work with Sun JDK 1.5.x, I have to set the property to point to a different class, not in the org.apache tree, since Sun ship a different XSLT implementation. When I do this, Maven fails due to a dependency on a class in Xalan.

I can work round this by putting the Xalan jar into my Maven installation (i.e. in %MAVEN_HOME$\lib), but my co-workers don't want to modify their copies of Maven.

Can Maven please be made independent of the XSLT/JAXP implementation?