Joe, you're mixing apples and oranges here, and it's just not the same. Mixing sawdust into your potting media in a container is nowhere close to adding sawdust as a topdressing or mulch to a flower bed.
I can guarantee you that my 1" of sawdust on my alkaline soil cannot possibly lower the soil pH to 3.5. Your story about mixing sawdust in a garden does not have enough information to determine what exactly caused the garden to be "ruined" for two years.
I'll stand by my statement that adding native hardwood, softwood sawdust as mulch isn't a problem for plants. I also grow out hostas and other plants in large number from tissue culture for resale, and have never had a problem with it. It's a great mulch and weed barrier.
Certainly, as with all things, you have to use some common sense when you do anything. For me, it makes a lot more sense to use something in a beneficial, environmentally friendly way if possible rather than throwing it out.