How to best polish the manager experience

Now, I say polish, but I mean limit. I run a blog typish deal with editors posting content and I want to make the experience simple for them. There are some fields they don't need to modify when creating a new news article for example, so I'd like them hidden. I also want to give them idiot proof buttons such as "create article" (chooses template article), "create a review" (chooses template review). And instead of the resource tree I'd like to display all resources they have access to modify (ie, resources under certain parents) in a list and show custom TVs within that list with conditions.

Why I am being so specific is that for now I've used a front-end solution. My editors log in with login-snippet, they create content with NewsPublisher and I've created that list of content they can edit with getResources. Furthermore I even have a forum for them, Vanilla for now but hopefully Discuss soon.

It's just that the current system feels really really flimsy, it lacks some of the features the full back end has and it feels very out of date. This solution was to be something temporary, but I have rolled with it for quite a while and in the process tried to refine it. Now I want to fix this problem I have with my system and I'd like to transfer using the real manager. But I don't know is it possible and if it is, how should I proceed.

Should I create a second manager? Is it even possible? Can I manage with just modifying the access policies? Should I use a CMP/CMPs?

Is there an extra out there that would help me with my problem?

I'd really appreciate it, if someone could point me to the right direction.

The Revolution Manager is highly customizable.

You can hide sections of it by disabling some of the standard permissions and you can hide Top Menu items and subitems with custom permissions.

You can also hide, re-caption, or add default values to fields of the Create/Edit Resource panel with Form Customization.