Hello J,
Yes, unfortunately frozen rows are not supported and as you have already observed, any workaround will require manual implementation (duplication and syncing) of the enabled Grid features (e.g. editing, column resizing, column hiding, sorting, filtering, etc). Probably the least cumbersome technique would be to include the desired "frozen" data in the Grid's footer, and take care of manually syncing any changes (edits) to the data values
http://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/grid/aggregates
http://docs.telerik.com/kendo-ui/api/javascript/ui/grid#events
Frankly speaking, we have no plans to offer such functionality for the time being.
Regards,
Dimo
Telerik
Join us on our journey to create the world's most complete HTML 5 UI Framework -
download Kendo UI now!