Dave,
is the idea to refactor the current CMS package or are we starting from scratch? Does the current CMS package actually work? I'm helping Greenpeace with workflow support so I could provide some assistance in that area.
Personally I would like to see an ultra simple CMS package with workflow support in a simple admin UI, a user UI that allows browsing of content folders in say a left menu, and the content items (articles) just appear in a list. Shouldn't take long to build such a package.