Word 2008 for Mac and NFS mounted home directories "Save File" issues

Greetings everyone,
(Long time lurker, first time poster here)
I admin a small network (under 20 workstaitons) with a centralized NFS server, with user home directories mounted via NFS upon login. Users are authenticated via LDAP. This is all working fine, there is no problem here. The problem lies when my users use Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac. When they attempt to save a file to thier Desktop (or Documents or any folder under thier home dir) they are met with the following message:
(dialog box popup)
"Word cannot save or create this file. The disk maybe be full or write-protected. Try one or more of the following: * Free more memory. * Make sure the disk you want to save the file on is not full, write-protected or damaged. (document-name.ext)"
This happens regardless of file format (Doc, Docx, Txt) and regardless of saved location under the network mounted dir. I've noticed that when saving Word creates a .tmp file in the target directory, which only further confuses me to the underlying cause of the issue.
When users logon to a local machine account and attempt the save, there is no issue.
I have found many posts in other commuity forums, including this one, indicating that the issue is a .TempoaryItems folder in the root of the mounted directory. This folder already exists and is populated with entries such as "folder.2112" (where 2112 is the uid of the LDAP user). I find other posts indicating that this is an issue with Word:2008 and OSX10.8, with finger pointing in either direction, but no real solution.
I have installed all Office for Mac updates from Microsoft (latest version 12.3.6).
I have verified permissions of the user's home dir.
I have also ensured that this issue effects ONLY Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac apps, LibreOffice and other applications have no issue.
Does *ANYONE* have a solution or workaround for this issue? While we're trying to phase Microsoft products out, getting users to ditch Word and Excel is difficult without removing them from systems completely. So any pointers or help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
~k

I can't tell you how to fix bugs in an obsolete version of Office, but a possible workaround is to use mobile home directories under OS X Server. The home directories are hosted locally and synced with the server.

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[http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10050371]
[http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10509885]
[http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9514639]
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