> PUT as a default makes sense but it should be able to support 
    > POST, PATCH, GET, CHANGETHETHING or anything else, as browsers 
    > now support arbitrary method strings in XHR.

... it does (as mentioned by vidarh). The full suite of jQuery options are passed through transparently. What this particular feature means is that:

    model.save()
    // PUT all of the models current attributes to model.url

    model.save(attrs, {patch: true})
    // PATCH just the `attrs` to model.url