Strider has been updated to 5.5. In the meantime have tested the new Game Animation Sample Project (GASP),but that one is far more complicated to setup and comes with hundreds of animations to switch in and out depending on movement. Also there is no 5.5.4 version support according to my download options (perhaps support only ranges up to 5.5.x?).
The advantage Strider has over GASP it is considerably smaller and far easier to manage and setup, the results for my needs are met with Strider.