Hey Mutt
neither :-)
our worflow is the following:
1. edited videos are placed by the editors in a "blind" ftp dir (outside public_html). similar for pictures.
2. an internal custom cms checks for the available content to be posted as a website update.
3. from the internal custom cms, which we call CandidFox, "updaters" check for the updates available for each site for the week. They add a description, tags, etc, and the content is ready to go.
4. Updates are scheduled for each site for the week, based on the available content.
5. The update posting is done directly from our custom cms, which connects with each WP install via XMLRPC. The script moves the content to the .htaccess protected folder, takes care automagically to place proper links for members, categories, FLV for affiliates etc.
It sounds complex but from each person involved in the process is just 1 click. They don't even ever login in WP, nor they have any clue what WP is for that matter. Basically WP is just used as a frontend.
When we started with this approach, it was admittedly an overkill.
We were back then processing less than 10k / month and had just 2 sites.
I am really happy we took this approach early on. It allows now us to update 8 sites, and add new ones every month, with a ridicolously low overhead.
Also, adding a new site is a matter of 5 minutes, we install a new WP and add variables in our custom backend.
ps: In the past i have given access to sneek peak into this to people who were interested, on GFY. I don't mind doing it again
