Request: Have WP actually create cruft free archiv

The problem there is that WP doesn’t actually have archive directories, since everything is dynamic and runs through index.php.

You don’t need real directories. If mod rewrite doesn’t work, does this : ?
Create a file called ‘archives’ and put in it
<?
echo $_SERVER[‘PATH_INFO’];
?>
in .htaccess put :
<Files archives>
ForceType application/x-httpd-php
</Files>
Now, when you go http://www.youryoursite.com/archives/2003/04/21 you should see something like /2003/04/21
Basicly, you can then include index.php into that file after setting some paramaters. ( this is how bblog does it, and how i’ve always done it rather than mod rewrite. I’m not sure which is more compatible in terms of hosts supporting it .. the Files directive or mod rewrite.