SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 print jobs very large and slow

Using SSRS 2005, BIDS and SQL Server MGMT studio to develop the queries. I have a few reports published to the ReportServer, which is working great, with the exception of when I try to print any of these reports.

A two page (text, with some 'colored in' fields - no images) report produces approximately a 2-4MB print job.

A recent attempt to print a 50+ page report (again text, with some 'colored in' fields - no images) is producing a 60+MB print job, which I canceled because it's completely ridiculous.

SO:

I ended up contacting Microsoft's reporting services group to resolve this. It is a 'known' problem and is being 'considered' to be fixed in the 2011 release of SQL Server... In other words I'm stuck with large print jobs.

Here's what we did:
1) Try to print the reports directly from Reporting Services and saw a large spool file size.
2) Exported the report to excel, spool size was very small. PDF-export jobs were still fairly large.
3) Tried some possible workarounds: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=919543 They weren't feasible.

Finally, he discussed the case with his senior engineer and got the following information:

"This is a known issue with Reporting Services. It is due to a fundamental architectural issue with the EMF format. To resolve this issue would require moving Report Server printing away from the EMF format. This is currently under consideration but is a potentially destabilizing change due to the number of code points requiring change and the fact that any mistakes would be highly visible. i.e. affecting the printed report layout. This issue will not be resolved in the short term and may be addressed in the next release of Report Server.

While there is no solution present, The best way would be to limit the number of graphics on the report, avoid gradients in graphs and other images, use a more compact image format, such as GIF/JPG, print at lower DPI, export to PDF and print from there, etc."


So, up a dirty creek with no paddle.

Thanks.