Simplify Multiuser for new admin users

I’m new to WordPress, and as usual, diving right into the deep end.

Goal
My goal is to build a site where even technophobes can have their own community to share their work while interacting with the larger community as well. So, WP 3.0 multiuser seems the perfect fit (along with buddyPress, bbPress, etc).

Of course I have tons of questions, but one of the ones at the top of the list has to do with what happens after a new user first creates their account. I want to find ways to make their experience as simple as possible, and have their site as ready to move into as I can.

Naturally, I do this by stripping away (or at least masking) their administrative rights, and trying to pre-configure their site as much as possible, possibly based on questions they answer during registration or by options available on their site (dashboard, probably).

So, before I wade into trying to hack my own templates and plugins, I thought I’d appeal to the community (of incredibly brilliant and attractive people ?? ) to see if you can point me in the right direction — any magic wands or pixie dust out there?

There are a couple of issues that stand out that I haven’t noticed solutions for yet. (When I refer to Admin, that’s not the super admin, but new users that are admins of their own site)

1. Remove or Edit Admin Dashboard — One of the major issues I see is that a non-technical person may be intimidated by the dashboard, and all of the options. There are even some, like certain plugins, that I’d rather they not access at all. I would prefer removing or masking the whole admin dashboard over giving them carte blanche. Some kind of surgical config would be great. If we could at least simplify their interface with a clever template, that might be okay.
2. Sub-Forums — I kind of want to have my cake and eat it too on this. I’d like to have a site-wide forum so that all users can interact (bbPress groups solved my desire to sub-divide the larger community into special interests!), but I also want an admin user to have their own forum that can focus on THEIR interests.
3. Pre-config / Global Config — This overlaps the first entry a bit, and I’ve read some gripes that suggest global admin isn’t supported, but I’m wondering how much I can do as super admin to set up a user’s environment. Preferrably, I’d like to set up different themes. For example, one person may be a musician, while another is a serial novelist. I would want their sites to be very different, initially. Of course, I could go in and edit each user’s account, but I’m looking for a turnkey solution that will scale (don’t want to manually do this for a thousand new users a day — God willing — or make a new user wait for me).

Okay, I’ve probably gone on long enough. lol.
Naturally, I’m just another starving programmer, and don’t have much money to throw at this, but if some magic solution came up, I could go without food for a month or something… maybe sell a kidney if it was REALLY great.

I welcome any thoughts and suggestions.
Thanks for your help!