Thank you.  🙂

"Instead, I'd move the data to a (truncated and appropriately indexed) staging table on the target server and then use that to do your filtered INSERT."

This is what...

Hooray! I figured it out.

The thing is to set the OUTPUT parameter as noted below, which I was doing backwards.

DECLARE @ReturnInteger

SET @ReturnInteger = 7

EXEC dbo.testproc @RandomInteger = @ReturnInteger OUTPUT

SELECT...

Fair enough, Gila Monster.

FWIW, I found this...

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187004(v=sql.105).aspx

"Input values can also be specified for OUTPUT parameters when the stored procedure is executed. This allows the stored procedure to receive a value...

If it's of any interest, here is the vague scenario that fits my original question.

Normally, this proc has two possibilities. 1) The parameter is known so we pass it...