IIS Intrinsics

Hi all,
this is to all experts our there. I need your brains and skills on this one.

Anyone had the following problem:

Environment (W2K servers pre-sp4):
IIS web server (nlb) -> firewall -> application server (failover cluster)
asp application running out-of-process, calling vb6 DCOM components with
Server.CreateObject.

Problem: Intermittently there is an error raised by IIS: 800706be -
Server.CreateObject Failed. Sometimes every request, sometimes every fourth
day.

Solution?
Changes suggested by our Microsoft development support contact, - disabling
the IIS Intrinsics settings (anyone even heard of it!?) should make these
problems disappear (because of a callback issue running via a firewall).
To be able to change the intrinsics the DCOM package is splitted into two
packages of which one tier is installed locally on the webservers (which
means we got more DCOM requests over the net right now).
(Well why not just change the @Transaction property in the asp-page instead
of rebuilding the COM structure then, you ask yourself? Well, you see, we
use Commerce Server components and they just wont run with that setting)

Anyway, the IIS Intrinsics settings did not remove the error completely, but
it seems to have moved it down the application chain, more exactly to the
COM+ package installed on the web servers. The error code is the same but
the message is different. Either a "Method ~ of object ~ failed" or an
"Automation error" fault is displayed. The error does not appear with the
same frequency either.

These new errors the MS guy does not explain, he says "everything point to a
network issue".
But then again, if the problem is network related, wouldn't we have more
errors now since the top tier calls the next tier with more DCOM calls over
the net?

So the MS guy think network issue. Running the components inside asp (oop)
generates errors, but running it from a VB application on the web server
doesn't. What is the difference there?

Please, I really need your opinion on this one.

rgds,
/Erik