Thanks for the cacti suggestion... I tried rolling it out and it was immediately rejected by everyone who used it. Really, I think it was one of those odd, NIH-sort-of things, telco engineers being afraid of something they don't already know.

Luckily for me... I just need to make this system work for one more quarter... and we'll be rolling out a brand-new polling solution company-wide that should banish MRTG forever. Hence my reluctance to re-write the current system! :)