The fourth bullet above discusses exactly this. Namely, ACS4 has an elaborate permissions hierarchy that, if integrated and defaulted in a "smart" manner already provides these functions. If this hierarchy were somehow "exposed" so a site admin could understand and (heaven forbid) use the power of this, the system could be leveraged to a greater degree.
<apology to the Glossary author>
Glossary in particular is "stupid" in the sense that it does not, by default, make the magic "admin" permission a parent, in the permissions hierarchy, of its own "glossary_admin" permission.
</apology to the Glossary author>
I believe that this is easy to fix, although I have not coded the fix in the right place yet. Also, some of the other modules are "mindful" of this and seem to default "smarter".
Regards..
