Thanks, Roger. That's basically what I've been doing. I've been keeping an eye on this thread since post #1, i think. And I prefer the term professional-hack, or hackgineer.
Even in industry (maybe especially in industry) we don't do things right, we do them fast and under-budget.
As they say in racing - Cheap, Fast, Reliable - choose two! Paul is going for cheap and reliable, which is beautiful for this project, but wouldn't fly in my workplace (we lean to cheap and fast)