Oracle Database Discussions

Hi All,
We are trying to help a customer recover an 8.0.5 instance that was downed by the control file becoming too full, according to bug 636522. When they attempted to start the database, they encountered "denied expansion of controlfile section 11 by 7281 record(s) the number of records is already at maximum value (65535)". We had them lower the control_file_record_keep_time in order to get the instance back up. It no longer gets that error, but instead, according to the alert.log, it is just hanging after "ALTER DATABASE OPEN" is issued, and the db is still in mount mode.
The instructions for that bug specify that recovery is needed, which makes sense. What I do not understand is why it says to fix the problem by setting MAXLOGHISTORY lower. Wouldn't that just cause the problem to get worse? Can someone explain it a little more thoroughly before I recreate the control file for them? The other thing I don't understand is that in the trace of their controlfile, MAXLOGHISTORY is only 38117, but in the original error, it said 65535 was the limit.
I know an upgrade would be nice, but they say they are unable to at this time.
Thanks in advance for any insight,
-Dave