Ethan, welcome back.
Aaron, I like your idea of a multi-pronged approach and am very willing to focus on specific files or whatever portions that you or Ethan would like me to.
Terri, I also like the idea of the "skin" approach and other UI systems that I have developed for did use that approach. It makes a good deal of sense if the list administrator could change the look and feel by selecting a "skin" from a predefined set. Perhaps, a series of CSS files in the form of "skin_name.css" inside the template directory.
If the results can be used in MM 2.1 and make the forward movement of MM 2.2 that much easier, then I am all for it.
I can probably donate 4 to 8 hours a week starting immediately or as required.
John, I apologize if you thought I was poking at RHEL. Actually, just the opposite. I appreciate the stability and support offered by the packaged structure and do understand the bugfix policy. I just hope to extend any benefit to other users of RHEL in a way that is easier to implement.