sorry Jeff I have to disagree, even if the clustered index is on an indentity column then the clustered index is actually the entire table, regardless of the index being defined on an int or bigint, so if the next couple of columns are varchars and the values( length of these) change during editing you may well get page splits if you cannot perform an inplace update, in this case a fill factor may help avoid splits.

That said I find most applications of fill factors and padding are missguided at best - I usually challenge implementers of such code to prove and justify the action - they usually can't, which isn't too uncommon for many diverse changes/actions which affect sql server ( how urban myths arise ? )

As to the original post you could change the cursor to a while ( which is just a cursor in disguise ) but the way sql handles transactions is different for a while and a cursor so you may find yourself digging yourself into a hole.