*Reads the title* You are hereby banished from the Base. Good day. U_U
Of course he heard about it, however actually getting there would have been a problem. Don't you think Sabo would have begged his superiors to let him go? He probably would have gone all the way to Dragon, who would have had other things to be doing at that time. The leader of the Revolutionary Army cannot simply drop everything he's working on to send a group of people to fight a war they'll realistically never win. In addition, he wasn't going to let Sabo go all by himself, and in order to send enough people to actually make winning and saving Ace plausible... No, it just was never going to happen. He was crying at the end because he wanted to be there, but it would have made no difference, even as Koala said, and so he was kept back.
I would like it if he gave Mera Mera to Luffy, but no one in Luffy's crew wants to eat the fruit. And Sabo also wants to carry on Ace's legacy. Luffy and Ace and Sabo were all brothers; Sabo and Ace were closer when they were kids, and Ace and Luffy became about as close later in life, maybe not even that much. I would be fine with Sabo eating the fruit, especially if that means he becomes more common to the story. I would really like it if Sabo started traveling with the Straw-Hats, but that won't happen, which is too bad. All-in-all, it's too early to claim something like this; wait for the massive influx of flash-backs regarding Sabo and what actually happened. <.<