Solve product properties with custom taxonomies?

I need to add about 50 properties to a product, such as heigh, width, location etc. I created custom taxonomies for every property and ran into serious problems.

First of all, the UI is a mess! Every taxonomy uses to much space.
Some of the propertys should be presented to the user with radio buttons, checkboxes and dropwdowns.

What is the best practice? Use custom fields instead and lose the taxonomy functionality?

For each propery, ask yourself these questions:

1. Is it likely that, on average, more than 1-2 posts will have the same value for this property?
2. If so, do I need to filter posts based on this property, or is it just for display?

If you answered both with ‘yes’, then make it a taxonomy, otherwise a custom field.

Whichever you choose, you can make a custom metabox for that individual property, or several metaboxes that group related properties together. Whatever makes more sense.