Dave, I have successfully created a ODBC installer and it looks almost identical to the current MSI one. I looked at the M$ stuff you mentioned and the learning curve is pretty high. I created this one with Inno Setup 5 and it only took a few minutes and is much easier to use than MSI or that xml msi stuff
Like I said, I would be willing to take over creating the installer if you don't mind switching to Inno Setup.