Yes, I'm quite aware of SUBST, JOIN and APPEND. I've avoided their use ever since I discovered enough "quirks" that they cause (and that was back in those DOS days) -- as well as data corruption problems that resulted whenever Windows 2.x and 3.x were to hiccup with those commands were in effect.
Besides, if I did modify the software (presuming that I had source code and the compiler to rebuild it) to use drive letters or full paths to various folders, then I wouldn't really need to be looking into creating symbolic links in the first place. Perhaps the most annoying bit this is a situation that wouldn't have posed a problem at all under *nix -- 20 years ago.