SharePoint and Office Integration

I am working on a project which is bringing SharePoint into our network. The trouble I'm running into is a problem where integration between Sharepoint 2007 and Office XP causes authentication issues. A detailed description of the problem can be found here:

http://www.bluedoglimited.com/SharePointThoughts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=191

The short version is that since the user authentication for the web browser session is treated differently than the session for the Office app, the user is asked to authenticate again when an Office app opens. If Sharepoint indeed sets a cookie upon user authentication, can I grab that with an iRule and pass this back to Sharepoint whenever that user opens subsequent documents so as to effect credential caching? The project group is making noise about getting ISA servers instead and I want to head that off.

If there anyone here using Sharepoint 2007 Office integration/collaboration tools with a BigIP?