Yes, I originally was playing around with using vb or perl to clean up the backup files, however I ended up wanting to try to keep everything inside SQL. The other thing was that if the traditional maintenance plans failed the logs were woefully inadequate. With this type of framework you can use more standard error trapping and log those using RAISERROR or offload them to a table if you so desire.

I don't know if I understand your last question. If you're asking about re-using schedules for different jobs you can do so via the GUI by clicking the "Pick..." button on the Schedules page in your job or by using msdb.dbo.sp_attach_schedule if you're scripting things out. Schedules can be found listed in msdb.dbo.sysschedules.