In the end I took the plunge and decided that maybe having #nntp connections is not all that bad for our #uucp network.

Mostly because despite the beautiful simplicity of the protocol, actually getting uucp to work on modern machines is a whole different matter. It really is made for a dial-up world.

Also we don't actually have all that much traffic on our network to begin with, considering #usenet is kinda... I don't want to write dead, but it if it was a body it might start smelling soon.