Let me summarize my hours of research:
-- NFSv2 is dumb.
-- NFSv3 is dumb with large file support.
-- WebNFS is an attempt to make NFSv3 not dumb.
-- NFSv4 isn't so dumb, but is still in development.
Why is NFSv3 dumb?
-- 3 different services, many different ports
-- TCP and/or UDP in places
-- can't load-balance/firewall easily
-- encodes host name of client in mountd request (!?)
Still fighting it all.
Might cave and go with experimental NFSv4 support. *gasp*
Time for food.