Does anyone know if there are any plans, products (in development orreleased), or even rumors that Microsoft or a 3rd party plan ondeveloping TRUE global navigation across entire web applications oreven as a shared service at the farm level?
What kind of navigation are you referring to? Youcould always deploy something as a feature to both newand pre-existing sites.
What I did is have the farm add every new collection to a site directory (whichis its own collection) and for every site collection I build I set the PortalURL to go to the site directory.
I know of a beta 3rd party product that includes Farm-wide navigationas a key part of its functionality; it is yet unannounced. Please feelfree to contact me directly for more information.