Best way to work around NOT IN NULL issue?
Don't know about Sybase but in SQL Server you can do like this.

select *
from yourtable
where value not in (select N
                    from (values (@var1),
                                 (@var2),
                                 (@var3),
                                 (@var4),
                                 (@var5)) T(N)
                    where N is not null)


If you can't use values to create a derived table you can use union all instead.

where value not in (select N
                    from (select @var1 union all
                          select @var2 union all
                          select @var3 union all
                          select @var4 union all
                          select @var5) T(N)
                    where N is not null)