Yes, when I think there is no risk doing that I sometimes package from a git tree at a given commit. "git checkout" is my friend.
This is helpful if new features are worth it or security fixes are provided after the latest versioned release or tag. GRUB is a good example; Daniel Kiper is know to not release often, but at the same time does not commit before intensive review and testing: it is not unusual that developers need to provide several versions of a patches set before it be accepted.
PS Instead of doing that other distributions like Debian package a release + a zillion patches, some cherry picked from the source tree. But Debian has often several maintainers or contributors for one package, Slint only one maintainer for all packages, so...