Desktop Icon Grid Spacing too close/small/tight

On Win 9x/ME, I could "line up" my desktop icons such that
there was a reasonable gap or space between the text below
one icon, and the icon directly below it.

However, with Win XP, when I "align to grid" on my desktop,
the text below one icon is overlaid slightly by the icon
picture below it. Basically, the grid is too tight vertically
for the space needed by an icon and its descriptive text.

I will just add, that I have tried changing from large icons
to small icons, but Win XP also changes the grid size too,
always keeping the spacing just a little too tight.

Is there some option or registry setting that I could change
which would expand the default desktop grid size? Possibly,
to something around 1.25 to 1.5 times the current allowed
vertical spacing?

BTW, I have tried skipping over each grid space, basically
using every other one. That results in way too large of a
gap between icons, and Windows always trying to insert another
icon into the empty, skipped, space.