SQL Exceeds 8060 Limit

Hi All, I know this is not really an ideablade question but it works hand in hand with it. Our application connects to an sql server database (which is where ideablade steps in). The problem we have is that in SQL Server 2000 (which a percentage of our customers are still on and will never leave) we have the issue that a row cannot contain more than 8060k bytes. We have one table which has 3 fields which are nvarchar(2000) which has worked fine. We need to expand these fields to nvarchar(4000), which is where the problem comes in. If the user populates all 3 fields they get an error on save stating ....row cannot exceed the 8060 limit...... This only occurs in sql server 2000 because sql server 2005 and on caters for this. The options we have are setting the fields to be of datatype Text, but I am told this will cause performance issues or creating new tables which have a foreign key back to the main table to store the large text which will over complicate the database design.

Just wondering if anyone has come across this conundrum? And any advice on the problem would greatly appreciated.

Thanks