Rendering of areas with place=*

I am aware that this is an open (?) bug and has been the subject of discussion for a long time. My question is, is there an end in sight? I have been rendering villages in Angola as areas, and naming them (place=village, name=*) but none of these are rendered (neither name nor area). If I use landuse=residential, then they are rendered, and the map starts to have sense, but according to guidelines, this is not appropriate. If villages are not rendered (as places), then the map loses meaning - many parts of Angola appear uninhabited when in fact there are lots of small villages. Using a place point for the village is not practical, as many of the village names are not known - the important point is to have the area shading to show the rough limits on the map (IMHO) and the extent of repopulation. Should I switch to landuse=residential and revert all villages, or will this issue be addressed?