Do you really need all of the sigals for a general RS-232 port

Quick search reveals that it may be essentially a marketing term for Analog Devices series of RS-232 transceivers meant for low-power portable applications. This web page seems to corroborate: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1944943

Here is a datasheet for one of their CraftPort devices: http://www.analog.com/static/imported-files/data_sheets/ADM101E.pdf

So in short, it doesn't seem to be a protocol, but instead the name of the transceiver line. Shouldn't be any different from regular RS-232. I guess people like the sound of the name and use it on their products.

Ah, one edit: It seems that the output voltage levels are +/4.2V and it allows full +/-15V input. Some 'RS-232' transceivers don't like the full +/-15V range and only produce 0-5V output. This is a step above those in terms of compatibility with the true RS-232 standard, which is not often completely met nowadays in terms of input/output voltages.

Feel free to edit in more values. These are the ones I'm using now.

Atmel ATmega UART:

5 bits, normal speed : ±3.0%
5 bits, double speed : ±2.5%
10 bits, normal speed: ±1.5%
10 bits, double speed: ±1.0%

NXP LPC111x (Cortex-M0) UART: 1.1% (no table)

Microchip PIC 18F2XK20/4XK20: not defined. (wtf.)

As the venerable Mr. Horowitz & Hill put it:

By resynchronizing on the START and STOP bits of each character, the receiver doesn't require a highly accurate clock; it only has to be accurate and stable enough for the transmitter and receiver to stay synchronized to a fraction of a bit period of the time of one character, i.e., an accuracy of a few percent.

Note that conductor length plays a large part in serial clock errors. I stay under 19200 baud for regular ribbon cable more than 2' long. Makes me jealous of 4' 60Gb/s USB lines.