Mike,
Visit this site for a couple of view points. They also strongly argue against scrolling forms.
http://www.iarchitect.com/shame.htm Also from my website on the links page is a link to Allen Cooper's website. He's the author of About Face, The Essentials of User Interface Design.
If the form has boxed sections I'd be inclined to put each section on it's own page of a pageframe.
>Let's assume that I'm creating software to complete a government form that is printed on a 14" sheet of paper. It seems that creating a "form" that looks as much like the official form is a good interface. I know there are issues with getting to parts of the "form" that are out of view. If you think that a scrollable "form" is a bad interface, how would you design the above example?