vacuum

We are using PostgreSQL 6.3/Digital Unix 4.0B in an environment with 7x24
availiability. There
is one table, which has about 9000 new records per day and about 10% being
updated. With an index over several columns the select on this table is quit
short, but removing old entries and vacuuming is an very time
consuming operation (about 1 hour for the whole database!) and because of
the 7x24 production not acceptable. On the other hand, no index improves the
removing and vacuuming, but now the select is very time consuming, which is
also not acceptable. Even with the best solution (some index, which improves
the select but slows down the cleaning) our customer complaints .

The best way to solve this, would be to remove the feature of keeping
deleted/updated records in the databasefiles and therefor no need to vacuum.
Is there any way to configure this when compiling? Or are there other
possibilities?