I'd not be unhappy to see the actual WP menu cut down to the single entry. Especialy as it does resolve these other issues.

I suspect the main reason you can't get it to work is beause it needs explicit CSS…

not so much explicit css, but an explict admin file that is based on or relative to the plugin…  so it cant find the admin file since it not located within a plugin..

so any thoughts on the single admin entry?  go to one of our existing pages? or to some new generic admin panel with yet undertermined content, but perhaps with a more sp generic url (like simple-press/admin/sfa-admin.php)

Well backtracking slightly, if we kept the full menu list in the WP menu then I am not sure why we couldn't limit plugins to creating a new admin entry within existing sections. Why should we allow people to create whole new sections?

On the other hand, if we decide to limit the WP admin menu to just, say 'Forum', then maybe a good first panel would be an forum admin sitemap listing and linking all sections and panels…?

well, I think we need the ability for users to add a whole new panel… some of the stuff we are talking about making plugins (ie tags) are already their own panel with multiple subpanels…  wouldnt surprise me at all for some new plugin to want quite a fair number of subpanels… plus it allows a bit of branding for your plugin…  so, yeah, I want the ability to add a new panel…

At first glance, I like the admin sitemap area.  thought I wouldnt call it forum as that might be confusing from the manage forums one…  I was thinking admin, but that would conflict too… maybe just simple:press… I dont know… can think about it… will see if I can gen something up quickly when I get back to this…