Can my MacBook Pro use boot camp with Windows 7 with BitLocker encryption?

I'm at wit's end with this, and I'm hoping I can get some advice here. I've read so many forum, posts and reviews that I'm not entirely sure what I can trust.
I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro (MacBookPro8,3). I need to run Windows encrypted for work purposes. It needs to be real windows with full-disk encryption (FDE). The business tools run in boot camp, but not in Parallels, because Parallels doesn't support DirectX 11. I would also benefit greatly from an SSD.
I do not want to do anything hacky like removing the Mac reocovery partition, because I've read that just loading Disk Utility in OS X might mess up your patrition boot tables as it tries to "fix" things. I don't want to have to manually reocover to fix stuff or chance losing data.
I have read (and tried) installing BitLocker on Windows 7 Ultimate under boot camp, but ran into the partition limit on my internal HDD. A maximum of 4 partitions are allowed, and between OS X, its recovery, boot camp, and the Windows partition, all 4 are used.
I have considered one of the following, which may work:
Install OWC's Data Doubler Kit with an additional 240GB SSD (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DDMBS6E240/). I would replace the internal SuperDrive with the HDD, and install the new SSD on the faster SATA 6G port. Windows would be installed on the SSD and OS X would stay on the HDD.
Replace the internal HDD with a new SSD (keeping the SuperDrive). I would lose OS X altogether and just have Windows installed.
Forget the entire thing and just buy a PC for work.
My thoughts are that with option both options #1 and #2, I don't even know if these setups will allow BitLocker. In both cases, Windows will be the only partition on the drive, so I'm assuming that when BitLocker is installed, there will be room for the new partition it creates. With option #1, I'm pretty sure I'd still be using Boot Camp, but how would that would for option #2? Is boot camp used even though there is no Mac partition? Would I still need to keey the Mac Recovery partition for this to work? I'd probably need to use Boot Camp drivers under Windows, I think.
I'd certainly be interested in using a self-encrypting drive (SED), especially a SSD, but I'm concerned that most of them appear to require TPM or BIOS functions that Mac's EFI does not provide. Such a drive would allow me to drop BitLocker, but I would need to be use the self-encryption actually works on this setup. From what I've read, most of the SED drives will work just fine under EFI, but you won't be able to set or access the encryption password, which pretty much makes these drives unencrypted.
I've read that BitLocker can be configured to use a flash drive as a decryption key, but I haven't been able to test that yet. I'm tried creating bootable flash drives under Windows and OS X, and none of them seem to appear when I access the boot menu (hold option during boot chime). I don't even know if this system supports bootable USB flash drives, or whether they can be used as a BitLocker key under boot camp.
For the record, I have attempted to use an external thunderbolt drive as my Windows partition, but Windows doesn't want to be installed on removable media, and even if it worked, I believe you can only boot OS X from thunderbolt. I do have a second OS X install booting from the thunderbolt drive, so I know that works. Also, FileVault 2 is installed on my OS X partition, and I read something about FV2 using the Recovery partition somehow so you can't remove the recovery partition to make room for BitLocker.
So ... does anyone have any suggestions preferably based on personal experience as to whether options #1 or #2 should work for my needs?
At this point, I'm really thinking I should just bite the bullet and purchase a PC that I will forever look down upon.

Are you using a MacBook Pro? Is everything installed on the same drive?
I would love to know how that install was performed. When I install Windows under boot camp, my MacBook Pro drive ends up with 4 partitions: Mac, Mac Recovery, Windows, and a small partition that I believe is used by boot camp.
Installing BitLocker on Windows requires the creation of a new small partition that Windows will boot off. The small partition is unencrypted, while the primary Windows partition will get encrypted. The following post discusses the maximum partition issue: https://discussions.apple.com/message/22753791#22753791
Has anyone installed Windows through boot camp on it's own drive, and if so, can BitLocker be installed on that without reaching any partition limit? I'm assuming that's possible, but would like to know before I spend hundreds on new hardware.

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