I'm way behind you guys on change management practices, but as a designer I'll give my perspective on this. In short I agree with your president.
If revision A has been deemed defective it should be declared obsolete and superceded by part number... and as part of the obsoletion process, there...
Look in the help file under "Working with large assemblies", there you will find information regarding the 3GB switch. The other thing you need is to change the setting for the translator configuration file, ImportDoNotSave=OFF if memory serves.