-I need to avoid running the webserver as root at all costs. Port 80 is reserved for use by root, so I need to find another way to get access to port 80.
I do not believe it matters that port 80 is a privileged port; what does matter is under which user the process listening on port 80 listens -- and that user in your case should be "httpd" -- just a regular user with zilch of extra privileges.
