Sorry for the late post, but it’s only because I just recently experienced this very problem myself. No need for the workaround, however. In the “Export” dialog-box, you can simply check “Use Artboards, then choose “All” or “Range” and voila, no more excess space around the artwork. The only nag is that a “-01” (or whichever number of the artboard) will be added to the filename, but I can live with that.
Cheers