To whoever will read on this topic:

Despite claims from numerous sources that bcp and BULK INSERT can use format files to import fixed width columns, this does not seem to be so unless there is no return at the end of each line. For example, if I specify a single column import of a width of three, this goes in just fine: ABCDEFGHI as

ABC

DEF

GHI

but a file that looks like the above will not go in properly. I have never seen a fixed width file that looks like the one above. Instead each record is repeated on a new line.

My conclusion is that if you have such a file to import, you must use DTS, which handles it rather well. I had hoped to get the speed of bcp, but as it turned out, DTS is plenty fast enough.