WordPress MU

There are a tons of free wordpress plugins, that's the number one reason people came to wordpress. Wordpress Mu plugins have become nearly all paid whith a huge price.

It will be less and less worth to use Wordpress Mu. I'm thinking about switching to frameworks like symphony.

I don't use a single paid plugin.

That said it's my personal opinion that the Wordpress Core is beginning to suffer from bloat. Pretty much since post revisions were added the problems began. Comments meta means an extra table for every blog and personally I don't see why its necessary.

BTW Symphony is one of the most bloated and unnecessarily complex php frameworks on the internet.

We don't use any paid plugins, either. There are lots of great free ones, and the API makes writing your own super easy.

Look here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Check the wpmu tag.

Based on the various questions you've posted to the forums, I can tell that you will have problems with any system you try to implement.

Give symphony a shot.

You could always get an attorney to try and help play the GPL card.