Thanks, Grainger...I might try play around with a jfet source follower of some sort, but nothing that couldn't be removed in case it behaved poorly.
From the schematics I've browsed online, it appears that most pre-amps stick a buffer in the signal path before the amp stages, is that the reason they can get away with a simply a resistor between the inputs and the line out? Avoiding that buffer was one of the main design goals in the BeePre, if I recall correctly.