[wp-hackers] site sections, distinct theme per section

[Helen Hou-Sandi]

Just speaking from my own experience developing and maintaining a high
profile multisite in subfolders installation, which we chose in part for the
same reason you should - single sign on, discreet URLs. You'll still need a
function or plugin to assign a user a role on each network site during/after
sign up, I would guess, but is_user_logged_in() will tell you whether
they're logged into any part of the installation.

1) I've never dealt with a backup plugin, but really, it's not all that
difficult to just export the database/tables with phpMyAdmin yourself. I
personally would rather rely on myself than a plugin, but that's definitely
the type A "if you want something done right, do it yourself" in me. It
seems like BackupBuddy does the entire DB in a multisite instance, rather
than individual sites. With just a few network sites, I'd probably be okay
with restoring the whole thing if something went wrong, but of course I
don't know exactly what you're doing.

2) There are definitely incompatible plugins out there, but there's usually
an alternative that does work.

3) Migrating takes a little work (unserialize, search and replace,
reserialize the DB), but once you get used to it, it's also not particularly
difficult or even necessarily time consuming. It's just about developing a
routine that works for you.

--
Helen Hou-Sandi
http://www.helenhousandi.com