...... highly suspicious that R12 was outlawed right about when the
patent on it was about to expire......
Come on now.  Freon (R-12, R-22, etc) has been in use as a
refrigerant/propellant for many many years longer than the 17 year life
of a patent.  I helped my father work on Freon based cooling systems
back in the 50's (and Kyrene(sp?) and several other bad smelling fluids.
BTW, if you followed the links in the early part of this thread you got
to the EPA site that listed ALL of the legal substitutes for R-12, and
R134 is NOT the only legal replacement.  Go here:
http://www.epa.gov/spdpublc/snap/refrigerants/lists/mvacs.html
Note that two of the products that have been discussed here on several
occasions are listed as legal, Freeze 12 and Free Zone.
Here for color codes and fittings:
http://www.epa.gov/spdpublc/snap/refrigerants/fittlist.html
Here for actual content of replacements:
http://www.epa.gov/spdpublc/snap/refrigerants/macssubs.html
(way down the page)
and here for the EPA synopsis of what is legal and why:
http://www.epa.gov/spdpublc/snap/refrigerants/hc-12a.html - q3

Of special interest to me is the reason that many of these substitutes
are not yet legal is simply 'insufficient information on safety' or
words to that effect.  It is very interesting to read section 10 'Is it
legal to replace HFC-134a in a motor vehicle with hydrocarbon
refrigerants such as DURACOOL 12aR and HC-12aR?' on that last link
above.