>Walter already focused on them a bit. If you target replication in the long run it might be beneficial to restructure the DB schema: target a WORM layout, going for one record for each document (which I guess is unalterable after being sent/received) instead of going for a document-DB style adding each document to one in-record collection or bag of a "biz record", which I have seen sometimes in customer conflict cases.
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>Then only added documents need to be replicated (deletion, if allowed, does incur less load) and adding document n+1 does not force re-replicating previous n documents bundled in that "record".
>However, no good deed goes unpunished: Queries will take longer, as all documents belonging to a biz case need a query to be seen ;-))

If documents have abstracts and/or short descriptions, I'd include those in the queries (actually, make them queryable) but not the documents themselves. Then allow the user to retrieve one document at a time.