Hello and some questions

Hey everyone,

  Looks like I was able to con Dave into letting me on this list. ;-)
j/k.   I've been going through the archives to get caught up to speed
and I wanted to ask a couple of basic overview questions:

1. What is the current take on having one common design that is an
integration of look, feel, and navigation across all of the sub-sites?
2.  What is the current preference on programming languages for the
seperate sites?
3.  Is programatic content management being done at all on the sites, or
are they done via manual HTML editing?
4. What areas are open to modification, discussion, design and
implementation, and what are off limits?

Sorry if I'm asking any redundant questions that could be found farther
back in the archives.

Thanks,

Gavin