I found someone's solution that actually does seem to work, even if it's hacky!
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1640434/...
and
https://gist.github.com/SelimBasyouni/efec48a197bfefb59d4ff7...
basically create an EML file with X-Unsent: 1 and if you open in New Outlook it will show as a draft. This could basically replace what we're doing with MAPI.