To answer the 'Why don't you just use replication/triggers to keep the tables in sync' questions:

Our app is being phased out, and was developed by 2 teams of developers that wrote the app to access 2 different databases that were very similar, but not exactly the same. As we are developing new software to replace the old app, I have to keep it functional for now. Thus, replication and/or triggers are not a viable solution in this case. 🙂