Just curious:
How did you determine that the deadlocking was due to FK lookups?
Legitimate FKs should be used when possible. FK definitions in SQL itself are vastly more efficient than any code you write to try to do the same thing yourself.
SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".