Ben.Last
Formerly Lern2Swim
I like 20 lbs of tension on my strings at these scales, and even if you're no lower than F# you can't get it on that low string unless you're using bigger than an .80 gauge (which some string manufacturers don't even offer). It's just physics. The only way around it is to get a longer scale length than 27".
No. Like you just wrote, you can also get heavier strings. They are not prohibitively hard to find.