I am looking for the same exact solutions… my suggestion is to automatically update the .htpasswd file with user’s credentials so that the same credentials exist in both locations (database credential compare for segregated content delivery and standard ntlm style user authentication). If the authentication password file is auto-updated upon user creation, user deletion, credential changes and includes access grouping to mimic the ‘roles’ in the current wp system, then future plugins and future wp updates should have the capacity to have an actual authentication/security system.
If anyone has started or completed a project like this, please post here for the rest of us to have wp components that we need.
