No, I'm not aware of another solution right now. I don't think the clipfactor method is ugly (I was the guy who requested it back then for the very same reason). As you've already stated, just cycle through all entities after level load and increase the clipfactor variable if the entity has its SHADOW flag set.
"Falls das Resultat nicht einfach nur dermassen gut aussieht, sollten Sie nochmal von vorn anfangen..." - Manual
