As you have discoverd the best cure for Ivy is to uproot it. We have places where we have cut it back to the soil, dug out as much roots as possible, placed a very heavy landscape fabric down and covered that with several inches of a mulch only to find the Ivy growing out from under the edge of that area, requiring repeated cutting back during the growing season to further control it. The Landscape Architects, Designers, and horticulturist that have suggested the planting of this stuff should be required to dig it all up.

I think it's going to be a long, slow war of attrition. I went back over where we pulled some last year, and the root remains left in the ground are trying to come back up. I guess it's a case of pull it up and over the next several years, keep going back and forth over the ground. I'm hoping if I can keep enough leaf matter off the stuff, the roots will eventually croak off.

And I am in total, heartfelt agreement with your last sentence!