Any chance of tweaking it so that I could give +1’s to articles irrespective of and in addition to sharing them in G+ posts? From what I can tell, giving +1’s isn’t currently supported by the plugin.

Google Reader had +1 tied to sharing so that in order to share on G+ I had to +1 it first. That was okay but not entirely optimal: +1 and posting on G+ about something could IMHO very well be two separate functions, so that you could

* only +1 something
* only share it in a G+ post
* do both if you like