Groups / Profiles and ASP.NET

Hi.

I need some planning advice.

Namely, I want to build "Groups" and "Profiles" into my web
application.
I have been doing some initial reading about ASPNETDB and Membership
online. My questions are:

1) For those that have used ASPNET Membership to authenticate users
and define roles / security / etc, what has been your experience? Is
it
reasonably intuitive / easy to get going? Any limitations?

2) Is it possible to create detailed profiles with this API such that
the profile
can do a lot of cool stuff (friends lists / news feeds / group
subscriptions, etc).
Is that is the Profile Manager more dynamic than the simple storing of
email
and some other basic information? Any limitations or problems
encountered
with the ASPNET Profile provider API?

3) I want to have "Groups" as part of my application. Something
similar to
the groups service on Google (here). I see a lot out there on Roles in
the
ASP.NET membership API but not much about Groups... is it the same
thing? Does this feature allow basic user authentication to "create a
group"
and "offer various administrative rights" to people that join (edit /
delete / upload /
accept join requests to the same group / and so on)? Something like
a power-user but not an administrator?

4) Along the lines of #3, I have been reading about AzMan as I would
like to
have as much flexibility as possible with Groups. AzMan seems to be
sort of
what I want as it allows more flexibility than the Membership API /
ASPNETDB
but what I read online is pretty negative in terms of documentation /
configuration.
That, plus I am very wary of anything Interop. Thoughts here? Which
way is the
path of least resistance without losing sight of what I am trying to
accomplish?

Feedback appreciated, thanks.

.

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