vba ado provider to sql server -- ole and native client

i haven't tested the performance recently.. but I want to throw this question out there to get perspective.

I have an Excel/vba app that runs reports off of a sql server warehouse in a corporate environment, using windows authentication.  

I'm using an ADO connection to the db, and have alternated between using the OLE (SQLOLEDB) and the native client (SQLNCLI10) provider.

It's worked fine with both providers for 6 years, and I haven't noticed a significant performance difference, although I haven't been scientific in benchmarking them.

But now some people have been upgraded from version 10 to version 11, and now it doesn't work for them, since it is version specific.  

That will be a pain to maintain, and I'll have to come up with a creative way to try more than one and turn off  On Error.  

I know that OLE has been depreciated, but it seems to me it has the significant advantage of not being version specific in the connection string.

Is there a way to use the native client that is not version specific?  And is it truly better than using OLE?  When will OLE be phased out?

Thanks...