The answer is actually quite easy once you know how to get to it.
After searching the Forums, finding tons of questions that weren't fully answered and then finding the WayFinder "Almost complete manual" the answer was easy
The syntax used in the WayFinder chunk is different to that what you would usually use, [++] not [**].
The answer uses Option 2 of my first post, as it's the only way it works with Wayfinder, unless you change the link attributes per hand:
Make sure your "status" TV is accessible to all of your templates.
Now create a new chunk for your Wayfinder rowtpl - lets call it "myrowtpl":
<li[+wf.id+][+wf.classes+]><a class="[+status+]" href="[+wf.link+]" title="[+wf.title+]" [+wf.attributes+]>[+wf.linktext+]</a>[+wf.wrapper+]</li>
Note here:
class="[+status+]"
NOT
class="[*status*]"
Now change your Wayfinder call to something like this:
[[Wayfinder? &startId=`0` &rowTpl=`myrowtpl`]]
The only thing that won't work is the sort order - i've tried using the TV but get PHP errors every time.
As a reference, I have attached the Wayfinder user manual PDF - look at pages 90 + 91
