If I understand what you want to do correctly, you should read Todd's article Customize your Site Definition to Protect your Future (SharePoint Advisor). In it he describes how to add ghosted direct-mode pages  to each site root (see recommendation 5 in the article). I also believe that you can download his template file  from the Mindsharp site. We did this in conjunction with Heather Solomon's post on using a tabbed navigation  ( heathersolomon.com/.../1434.aspx). She also provided some source files.