JBoss SOA-P fails to create tables in MySQL due to some columns being too long (over 1000 bytes)

Issue

The installation of JBoss SOA-P 5.3 with all of its tables in a MySQL 5 with UTF-8 encoding fails because some of the keys of the jUDDI tables are too long (over 1000 bytes).
One example:

create table j3_publisher_assertion (
        from_key varchar(255) not null,
        to_key varchar(255) not null,
        from_check varchar(5) not null,
        key_name varchar(255) not null,
        key_value varchar(255) not null,
        tmodel_key varchar(255) not null,
        to_check varchar(5) not null,
        primary key (from_key, to_key)
    );

The workaround is to use LATIN1 encoding (1 char = 1 byte) or InnoDB engine.

Which kind of encoding do you suggest / recommend for the DB hosting SOA-P tables?