Re: partial font downloading

["K. Berry" <kb@cs.umb.edu>]

    then the only way to get the fonts into the TeX-generated
    PostScript file is to print something in the required fonts

This is not the only way, at least in dvips.
Personally, I prefer this alternative:
\special{header=foo.pfa}
Then partial downloading is not an issue.

Anyway, I agree with the main point. If an EPS file uses fonts, those
fonts clearly cannot be partially downloaded. But until there is freely
available source for this feature, this all seems a moot point to me.