• It's a lot of work, compared to just banging out an Enum.  I had some help from MS Excel to create the code, though.
• Might have extra system overhead as well.  (Don't know for sure - depends on how standard Enum is implemented.) 

• No 100 item limit
• Separate name and value, so value could be just about anything (though I'd recommend sticking to primitives).
• Works just like an Enum, and shows up better in the auto-complete (Enums always give my a-c problems).
• Add your own methods as necessary, again, unlike Enums.
• Best of all (and unlike the Enum) it serializes in and out of JSON without a hitch.

public class MyEnumClass 
{
    final string itemName;
    final string itemValue;
    final integer itemOrdinal;
    
    private MyEnumClass(string n, string v, integer o)
    {
        itemName = n;
        itemValue = v;
        itemOrdinal = o;
    }
    
    public string name()
    {
        return itemName;
    }
    
    public string value()
    {
        return itemName;
    }
    
    public integer ordinal()
    {
        return itemOrdinal;
    }
    
    public override string toString()
    {
        return 'MyEnumClass{name=' + name() + ', value=' + value() + ', ordinal=' + ordinal() + '}';
    }
    
    public Boolean equals(Object obj) 
    {
        if(obj instanceOf MyEnumClass)	// Note: instanceOf returns false if obj is null
            return 
		((MyEnumClass)obj).itemOrdinal == this.itemOrdinal && 
		((MyEnumClass)obj).itemName == this.itemName && 
		((MyEnumClass)obj).itemValue == this.itemValue;
        return false;
    }
    
    public Integer hashCode()
    {
        return itemOrdinal * itemName.hashCode() * itemValue.hashCode();
    }
    
    public static List<MyEnumClass> values()
    {
        return new List<MyEnumClass>
        { 
            MyEnumClass.Item_1,
            MyEnumClass.Item_2,
            MyEnumClass.Item_3
	};
    }
    
    public static MyEnumClass Item_1 {get { return new MyEnumClass('Item_1', 'Item 1', 0); }} 
    public static MyEnumClass Item_2 {get { return new MyEnumClass('Item_2', 'Item 2', 1); }} 
    public static MyEnumClass Item_3 {get { return new MyEnumClass('Item_3', 'Item 3', 2); }} 
}