I think its probably the only way to go. Incase it helps after comparing what cocos2d alpha has done to the spine-c runtime.
My main findings are .c renamed to .cpp
CCSkeleton - Methods like boundingbox renamed to getBoundingBox to match new structure of cocos + missing virtual functions added (to fix abstract class errors)
They have also wrapped every single file with a "namespace cocos2d { namespace extension {"
I dunno yet if the latter would stop the Event problem, about to try attempt 3 of getting it all going 🙂
*** UPDATE ****
Got it working 🙂 - Had to rename Event, Animation to remove ambiguity. Plus update CCSkeleton as mentioned above.
Here is my updated code.. (remove all existing files from the cocos lib, then add these new files to the mac/ios cocos2dx-extensions target.)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a77n4g5sq9fqqsq/spine.zip
Please note: However i have a problem with premultiplied alpha which i have started a new thread.