Hi Mike,
Just a suggestion..
Why not try a different front end..
take a look here:
http://suicidedolls.com/
I'm using geeklog there. It's a fixed width but you can do a million things with it
and already has members area built in with alot of plugins.
Theres others out there as well.
I used to swear on wordpress but their constant upgrades and limited
core functionality gets old pretty quick