Hi Shannon,

Working in a PHP-MySQL Enviroment, I find some basic Problems of this 
approach. 
As an embedded lang PHP seems to be a perfect solution for any  database 
driven web application. But sooner or later you will have to change the 
logical strukture xor the visual representation of our app (maybe, if your 
boss or some customers need any changes). Then your WILL run into 
difficulties, because in PHP these two things are one. One the other Hand 
this is the strength of PHP, but for changing projects  it's necessary to 
separate the "logic" from the "view". 
Imagin, that in a couple of month another person is engaged to do the visiual 
part of the web service, who only knows html. IMO it would be a waste of time 
for him to learn PHP, because it does not do any visualisation. This is the 
job of html,css and javascript. 

The IOWA-Project may be something for you: http://beta4.com.iowa

Ralf