Multiple blogs – shared pages and layout

Hello,

I realize this might be another “Multiple blog thread”, but I have done alot of searching for a plugin/hack that fullfill my needs.

I have a couple of customers that want to have a blog and a article-system; or a blog and a tournament schedule; or a blog and a event launch etc etc.

Until today I have made category-specific blogs that displays different categories on different pages, and with different layouts. This will almost get the job done after hours of coding – but it brings with it some problems.

• Sidebar-widgets can’t be used, since they (as standard) don’t take in consideration which categories to filter on. Tags-, vote- and most commented-widgets for example.
• Often it also is problem with the assignation of classes such as current_page_item and so forth.
• With much more which I can’t think of right now.

To the solution:

WordPress MU hasn’t really been an alternative, since it would take more time from me than I gain with the finished product.

I recently discovered WP Hive and Virtual Multi Blogs which off course is an almost good solution for my problem – but the pages and the design aren’t shared.

Is WP Hive/Virtual Multi Blogs the ultimate solution for my customers needs, or do you have any other ideas on how to solve this.

Very grateful for feedback,
NT