When might this be available (crack that whip!)?

Is there a backdoor that would allow us to do this?

Having transferred 100+ folders, sub-folders, and items between two sets twice in the past week, I highly suggest you re-consider the importance of this "feature".  It's frustrating to find that "copy" doesn't behave in a manner consistent with, say, a file system.  And even more frustrating to realize that you're now faced with the following unpleasant task:

• Click through a hierarchy of items (multiple clicks)

• Select copy functionality

• Select target Set

• Click through hierarchy (multiple clicks)

• Finalize copy

• Repeat for each item you need to copy

Recursive copying would have saved me a significant amount of time.

Er... and the roadmap seems to be showing the list of features currently available in the latest version of Contour, rather than its future direction.