You wrote the words "smooth solution or user experience" below. I love
those words, and they are so often not applied by systems folks.

I applaud your phrase. I love it and I will hereby use it.

It was like when I was trying to "fix" sharepoint's propensity to open word
files in "read-only" mode. The advice I got was "tell the users if they
want to edit the file" to close this read-only version and then go back to
the list and select the "Edit in <application name>."

As if my users would actually remember to do that. It used to be that if
you would emulate the "Word" MDI, that most users could use things. Now,
the internet has changed that. If it doesn't do what you want with a simple
click, "it doesn't work."