removing usage of ** params, as this forces typecast to hash, and one loses the options silently keeping the object passed in init, which is a big part of the plugins

lib/httpx/chainable.rb

@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ module HTTPX
     end
 
     def plugin(*plugins)
-      Class.new(Client).plugins(plugins).new(default_options)
+      Class.new(Client).plugins(plugins).new
     end
     alias :plugins :plugin
 
@@ -71,6 +71,7 @@ module HTTPX
 
     # :nodoc:
     def branch(options)
+      return self.class.new(options) if self.is_a?(Client)
       Client.new(options)
     end
   end

lib/httpx/client.rb

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ module HTTPX
   class Client
     include Chainable
 
-    def initialize(**options)
+    def initialize(options = {})
       @default_options = self.class.default_options.merge(options) 
       @connection = Connection.new(@default_options)
       if block_given?
@@ -34,22 +34,21 @@ module HTTPX
     private
 
     def __build_reqs(*args, **options)
-      rklass = @default_options.request_class
       case args.size
       when 1
         reqs = args.first
         requests = reqs.map do |verb, uri, opts = {}|
-          rklass.new(verb, uri, **@default_options.merge(options.merge(opts)))
+          __build_req(verb, uri, options.merge(opts))
         end
       when 2, 3
         verb, uris, opts = args
         opts ||= {}
         if uris.respond_to?(:each)
           requests = uris.map do |uri|
-            rklass.new(verb, uri, **@default_options.merge(options.merge(opts)))
+            __build_req(verb, uri, options.merge(opts))
           end
         else
-          [rklass.new(verb, uris, **@default_options.merge(options.merge(opts)))]
+          [ __build_req(verb, uris, options.merge(opts)) ]
         end
       else
         raise ArgumentError, "unsupported number of arguments"
@@ -72,6 +71,11 @@ module HTTPX
       requests.size == 1 ? responses.first : responses
     end
 
+    def __build_req(verb, uri, options = {})
+      rklass = @default_options.request_class
+      rklass.new(verb, uri, @default_options.merge(options))
+    end
+
     @default_options = Options.new
     @plugins = []
 

lib/httpx/options.rb

@@ -24,8 +24,6 @@ module HTTPX
         @defined_options ||= []
       end
 
-      protected
-
       def def_option(name, &interpreter)
         defined_options << name.to_sym
         interpreter ||= lambda { |v| v }

lib/httpx/request.rb

@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ module HTTPX
     
     def_delegator :@body, :empty?
 
-    def initialize(verb, uri, **options)
+    def initialize(verb, uri, options = {})
       @verb    = verb.to_s.downcase.to_sym
       @uri     = URI(uri)
       @options = Options.new(options)

lib/httpx/response.rb

@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ module HTTPX
     
     def_delegator :@body, :close
 
-    def initialize(request, status, headers, **options)
+    def initialize(request, status, headers, options = {})
       @options = Options.new(options) 
       @request = request
       @status = Integer(status)