WordPress MU

I know this is going to sound like a really stupid question and probably impossible but here goes.

1. I want to set up WPMU to work with BuddyPress, using subdirectories, with the URL 'example.com/blogs/BLOGNAME', where WPMU is installed in the root.

2. Secondly, I'd like to have certain internal blogs as subdomains, like 'help.example.com' or 'blog.example.com'.

Is there any way I could get this done? Or at least #1?

Are there any rewrite gurus who could help with this?

2 is doable via Site Admin -> Blogs -> Edit. You have plenty of options there, including blog URL.

1 needs rewriting of htaccess file.

But that means I have to edit each blog URL individually? There must be a way to automate that rewrite?

And how would I go about achieving that second subdomain rewrite? I'm not an .htaccess guru!