[Dovecot] viewing a subset of folders in dumb IMAP clients

I have several dozen IMAP folders (stored as Maildir++). When I'm on
the go with my iPhone, I only want to see a few of them.

My naive solution that didn't work:

1. create an alternate login that yields my existing permissions and
   mail folder, but stores its own version of metadata

2. configure the iPhone to use that login

3. subscribe to the folders I want

I test-drove the Dovecot config in a webmail app and it worked
exactly right, but it turns out the iPhone (running the latest,
1.1.3) apparently doesn't respect IMAP subscriptions.

My world-weary, clunkier, but seemingly working solution:

1. have the alternate login yield my existing permissions, but a
   different mail folder and metadata

2. create that mail folder, make its cur/new/tmp symlinks to the real
   ones, and symlink in the other folders I care about

Is this safe? And is there a more elegant way to do what I want?

Thanks,

• Amitai