Best Approach "project" Entity: Category? Entry? Sql? Options

[mda]

I"m exploring the use of MT4 to re-implement the web site of an NGO.
They have roughly 100 projects to report news about.
I want to manage both metadata about the projects (location, inauguration date,
project type, synopsis, etc.)
as well as various news updates about the projects.

In looking around, I can see several different approaches. What I can't see
is how I'm going to regret each of them, and would appreciate any guidance:

1) project as "entry".
I create two blogs, and customize the fields for each. In the "project" blog,
there exactly one one entry for each project. The customized fields are
things like longitude, inauguration_date, etc.
The other blog is the "article" blog. There is (at least) one custom field for
it, which is the name of the project in the other blog. This might be enforced
(I believe) with RightFields plugin and its linked entry support -- though RightFields 2.0
seems to be in perma-beta for MT4 support.

2) project as "category".
I create a category for each project. Again, I use CustomFields to add the requisite
metadata for each project. I might use subcategories to match geographic regions.

3) project as custom SQL table
Using RightFields (2.0 if it works with MT4) I create and maintain an entirely distinct
custom SQL table for the project entity.

4) bail out and adopt some true CMS with customizable objects TBD.

I know SQL and Perl quite well. I know very little about MT. I'm sort of leaning
towards choice "2" above, though I'm worried that the downside of it is that there
won't be an easy way for normal (non-admin) users to manage the field values.

Thanks....

-mda