you should be able to use
<?php the_tags('Wrote post in:' ', ' ''); ?>
as shown in the examples on this page
http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/the_tags
I would be very interested in solutions to this issue
I’m considering this post and this as being the most relevant to my issue.
Going ahead on the categories + tags approach for now, hopefully will be able to get my menus to behave 😀
Still, feedback on the decision making process or links to other relevant discussions would be appreciated.
