Glad to see my original question was not so naive after all. There seems to be some real debate about how to best insure against heat damage with these high-temp fixtures. It is absolutely true (as Sparky said) that most homeowners would not give a second thought to putting in recessed lighting. I think there's an unfortunate sentiment that goes something like "if it wasn't safe for me to do they would sell it at Home Depot".
I don't know if this is a recent innovation or not, but most halogen fixtures do have a temperature cutoff whereby they begin to flicker and ultimately cut out when some critical temperature is reached (what that is I don't know). Perhaps this is the manufacturers response to the changes in insulation methods? In any case, it seems that the issue is not so black and white.
-TRS
