@Jason - Correct, until you get to SP2. In Sp2 and later, you can set Header Promotion mode to turn off creation of x-header named props, period.
@Pete_Heilig_Gartner - Re-read the original "Named Properties, X-Headers, and You" post. The issue is (of course) that all clients consuming MAPI everywhere would need to be recompiled (along with new versions of MAPI.DLL, all service providers, and all utilities). It isn't just a matter of sticking more bits on the _SPropValue, modifying the macros to work against 64 bit ints, modifying all existing property tags, creating a mapping scheme from old PTAGs to EPTAGS, changing the unpacking (and packing) code and changing the underlying database format. It's getting every client (including ones that no longer even have source code) to be able to retrieve a list of properties where things get dicey.
As mentioned, named properties are now a per mailbox resource in E14.