Out of curiosity, which are the relevant features that were removed from GTK3? It should be possible to revive them in a separate library if they really are needed.
Additionally, the old type-ahead complete was removed from filename-entry. Arch at least has a patch set to put this back, but the location-mode thing is resistant to fixing. I changed the default initialization with a simple patch to gtkfilechooserwidget.c but it only works for the first time I File->Open in a gtk3 application. The second reverts back to pathbar.