Barracuda bikes had a few model years (~1994, 95, 96 or so) where they supplied bikes with threaded steerers and threadless stems and headsets. It was a stupid idea, but I don't know if they ever experieiced a failure, either. Likely they did have a couple failures. Barracuda is no longer around and maybe that was part of it.

If I were you, I would go for the longer fork/thread extension/cut/quill stem option. It isn't that crazy an operation - I have done it multiple times.