@redheadedrod mate perhaps i could help you with that project. it sounds interesting and I think this is something really really missing from xoops.

Moreover, we should have all configurations in the admin area (debuging, user level that will see debug info etc.)

we should also make a standart htaccess file for url rewriting

I use the following one,
-for redirecting to my page with www always in front of the url, -for custom error pages (i'm writing this bit of code trying to make it a bit more flexible),
-and to stop from hotlinking images.

Quote:

Options +FollowSymlinks

    ErrorDocument 404 /error_pages/404.php
    ErrorDocument 403 /error_pages/403.php

    RewriteEngine On
    rewritecond %{http_host} ^mysite.gr [nc]
    rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.gr/$1 [r=301,nc]

    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.+.)?mysite.gr/ [NC]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?facebook.com [NC]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(apps.)?facebook.com [NC]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
    RewriteRule .(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|bmp)$ http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/8210/stoleni.png [NC,R,L]

perhaps this could help someone.

Finally I think there should be a major database redesign so as to apply multilingual data, adding the language parameters in the tables and fields holding actual content. perhaps ids of that fields shouldn't be autoincrementing and unique? we could have the same ids with data in different languages.

This will give developers a mechanism to write their code with multilanguage support in mind. Xlanguage is very stiff at the moment.