post it online and send a link, or use an FTP site...?
(will it zip small enough to send as an email?)

couple of things i would suggest. since the document isnt intended as print media, you can probably adjust the setting that you use to convert it to a PDF in the first place.

also, i'm assuming you have a full version of Acrobat. within acrobat, you can try doing the "reduce file size" and the "optimize PDF" options. both of those will help shrink the size of the file.

using acrobat settings that downsample images so a lower resolution will also help keep the files smaller. since i'm guessing that the document will only be printed out on each individuals printer that recieves it, a lower resolution file should work fine. it might take a few tries changing setting and trying different distilling options to get it to where you want it, but there's enough options in Acrobat that you should be able to get it down to a reasonable size.

i dont know a whole lot about illustrator but isnt there an option in there to flatten transparencies? you could try that and save it under another name and use that file to distill to a PDF. that might help decrease the size also.

hope this helps!

Yes, I was going to say what Deanna said, only to add to make sure that when you're optimising, set it to acrobat 6 settings (since you mention you're dealing with a lot of transparencies). This helps me not get those annoying white boxes in the final PDF.