Don’t know if this is of any relevance, but here is a quick way to have your category description appear on top of category pages (mdawaffe’s case 2) without multiplying your template files.
Put the following outside the loop in your category.php template file:
<?php if (!('' == category_description())) : ?>
<div class="categorydescription"><?php echo category_description(); ?></div>
<?php endif; ?>
Style at will, and voil??! The category description is the one you enter in the admin area. It accepts basic HTML, as far as I can tell.
