I just found it strange that it had been a feature since block models and blockstates were introduced and that it was left in till now if it was never intended. Also searge tweeted about "breaking some rendering code" during the release of 1.8.1pre-5 and I thought it might be related. (https://twitter.com/seargedp/status/560495590124310528)
Sorry got my JSON code wrong, works fine
The comment from yesterday has been removed and the post has been marked as resolved again. Was this to do with the Jira maintenance yesterday? If so could you reopen it again please? Original comment was somewhere along the lines of "I made a lot of things using this and they are now broke because of it. A resource pack is meant to change the way mine craft looks, why should it matter if it doesn't look 'minecrafty'"