Changing Article Properties Without A New Snapshot

In our replication environment, the subscriber is initially set up with an snapshot of the publisher database. However, after that, the subscriber and publisher are different and we can never re-initialize from a snapshot again (we purge data on the publisher to reduce the database size but do not purge the same data on the subscriber; we do this by stubbing out the stored procedures on the subscriber that purge data on the publisher).

If an article is added or dropped from the publication, using snapshot and synchronize, just these changes are propagated to the publisher (without an entire new snapshot).

However, if an Article Property is changed (change SCALL to MCALL under Statement Delivery options for the UPDATE statement), the interface REQUIRES an entire new snapshot. Is there any way I can avoid the new Snapshot? It overwrites the subscriber database and this cannot happen!

Linda