Lukk: definitely agree with you. One of my biggest concerns when I left the job where I built this hybrid hierarchy was whether or not anyone left behind would be able to manage it. I documented the heck out of it, asked them if they were comfortable with it, got reassurances that either they'd figure it out or they'd call me (and pay consulting rates) if they needed help. Not a very good sign, I have to say.

Unfortunately, that company didn't have any 2008 servers, and had only vague plans about maybe obtaining some one day in the indeterminate future, so that wasn't really an option. The stuff in this article is moderately complex, but not horribly so, and doesn't depend on a proprietary data type nor on features that most companies don't have yet.