Ya know, my response was delayed because I was on vacation, and I think the time away gave me the perspective I needed to see it in a different light - and I believe I found the solution.
I still use the People Picker as needed, but for display in the form I created a new, read-only text box, and set its default value to equal the "DisplayName" of the People Picker. Technically that right there solves my issue because being Read Only the user cannot type into it. I took it a step further though and used Sections so that it's hidden while still blank (to avoid confusion) and the text "Auto-generated" is there in its place, and when it's NOT blank I display the Text Box, not the People Picker, so that the Read Only property prevents anyone trying to change it.
I've been testing it and it works quite well, so I think this will be the solution I use.