Digital means of varying frequency or voltage to a blower motor
If you are worrying about the complexity/cost/lifecyle of the snubber design then I can only assume you're looking for the cheapest solution.  If that's the case why bother going digital?

Digital controls on an AC motor are usually only employed for torque or fine speed controls.  If you're just using this on a blower, your engineer is right.  If you are trying to do fine control of some sort then the snubber is the least of your worries.  Here's a good overview on PWM AC control techniques which might help.

As an aside if here is a link if you want to know bit more about snubbers.  They do undergo a lot of stress and are often the failure point in PWM designs.  The linked article also briefly discusses component selection and reliability.