I have seen this same topic, also unanswered, in another thread. I found a workaround for one site I'm doing, but this probably wouldn't work for most. Because these particular products don't really need short descriptions, I am using the root sku as the short description and displaying that code, not the sku code. That is, instead of
{$products[product].productcode}
I am using
{$products[product].product}
This isn't the greatest solution, because a lot of people need those short descriptions for what they're meant for. I'd like to find something more correct.