You might find this article enlightening and further
encouragement to pursue late binding:
http://www.trigeminal.com/usenet/usenet026.asp?1033

Unlike, say, the Delete method to delete a table from the TableDefs
collection, you don't need the name of the reference to use the Remove
method. The Remove method expects an actual reference to the object, not its
name. Did you try the code I suggested?

I used to use code similar to what you had in the beginning of this thread
to replace broken references with downlevel references. But I don't think
it's working now. There are a few properties you can read for a broken
reference. Here's the code that used to work. If the ref.isBroken line is
throwing an error, you could catch that error and thereby know that the
reference is broken. The trick then is to know the correct guid's and
version numbers to try for adding the downgraded version references.

Alternatively, you can distribute the application in the oldest version in
use. Office references are generally upgraded automatically to the newer
version. I use Virtual PC to keep one or more virtual machines with the os
and office versions that I need to distribute. You can manually adjust the
references in the VM, and then distribute a "clean" version for users with
older software.

   For Each ref In Access.References
       strGUID = ref.Guid
       'Unfortunately, this seems to fail on the next line when a reference
is broken.
       If ref.IsBroken Then
           'Print the available details for broken reference
           Debug.Print "Reference: " & strGUID _
            & " (Broken) v." & ref.Major & "." & ref.Minor
           Select Case strGUID
           Case "{00062FFF-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
               'Outlook 9.3 (Office 2007) - try using Outlook 9.2 (Office
2003)
               References.Remove ref
               References.AddFromGuid strGUID, 9, 2
           Case "{00020905-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
               'Word 8.4 (Office 2007) - try using Word 8.3 (Office 2003)
               References.Remove ref
               References.AddFromGuid strGUID, 8, 3
           Case "{00020813-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
               'Excel 1.6 (Office 2007) - try using Excel 1.5 (Office 2003)
               References.Remove ref
               References.AddFromGuid strGUID, 1, 5
           'ElseIf Len(Dir(ref.FullPath)) > 0 Then 'Cannot read FullPath
when ref is broken
           '    References.AddFromGuid strGUID, ref.Major, ref.Minor
           Case Else
               strMsg = "Reference " & strGUID & " cannot be found." & _
                vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "Please contact the programmer."
               Beep
               MsgBox strMsg, vbCritical, "Cannot run the program"
           End Select
       End If
   Next ref