I have made much progress on "fixing" WSS to always open a doc lib file for
edit in <application> instead of read-only. I've done this mainly by
altering client-side scripts and through web part link construction. There
is a feature I'd like to try to do in the client-side.

The basic logic in the client script would be:

if (current user = checked out user) then
open file in edit mode
else
open file via HTMLViewer (i.e. truely 'view-only')
end if

I can see where in the client-side scripts where to do this, but I am at a
loss on how. 3 questions:

1) How do I get the user name who has the document checked out in client
side code?
2) How do I open the file (in most cases am office document word, excel etc)
in the HTMLViewer from client-side code.
3) How do I get the current user name in the client-side script?