IIRC, by the 70s you never saw front pockets on the wool jerseys in the Euro racing photos (remember Bike World magazine?) and I associated them with 50s racing. But old hands in my cycling club in the US still swore by them for touring and training for all the good reasons mentioned here, and you'd hear disussions about where you could still buy jerseys with front pockets. As a kid I managed to collect a few wool jerseys with front pockets, which I still and and which still fit. These also have those spread collars and button plackets you saw on the old 50s jerseys, but these were made in the 70s.
If you could some how get some of the same wool cloth a jersey is made from, making a double front pocket with a couple button holes would be pretty easy. I've altered a couple jerseys this way using an identical donor jersey whose collar was moth eaten. Would Kucharik, or Rivendell, or any wool jersey supplier also sell an 8"x10" swatch of the same fabric?
--Mitch