Kirk, how about instead of something where you compile galleries for each folder, you compile a gallery from the top folder.
It then goes and searches each containing folders (or maybe specified containing folders) and creates a gallery for each folder that contains images.
Using my previously stated folder structure:
/03232007/StPaul/700
/03232007/StPaul/800
/03232007/StPaul/900
/03232007/StMikes/800
/03232007/StMikes/900
/03232007/Myer/800
One could select the folder "03232007" and select the "Make Multi-Level Gallery" (or whatever you want to call it) option.
An overview: The code would look in "03232007" for any photos - none found. It would then look in each containing folder, recursively looking for photos. It woudl keep track of when it found photos and what galleries it has created.
For example:
It'd look in "StPaul" - No photos found, now look in each containing folder.
It'd look in "700" (alphabetically first folder inside "StPaul") - Oh, there are photos here! It would make a gallery of the photos in the "700" folder and return back to the "StPaul" directory. It would take note that, so far, there is 1 gallery named "700" contained in "Stpaul".
It'd look in "800" (alphabetically next folder insdie "StPaul") - Oh, there are photos here! It would make a gallery of the photos in the "800" folder and return back to the "StPaul" directory. It would take note that, now there are 2 galleries in "StPaul": "700" and "800".
Once it finished looking in "StPaul" and it returned back to "03232007" to look in the next folder (i.e. "StMikes"), it would create an index gallery for "StPaul" (listing off the galleries found in "StPaul" - "700" and "800").
Once it finished looking in "StMikes" and "Myer", it would return an inex gallery for "03232007" with 3 links on it - "StPaul", "StMikes" and "Myer" each linking to their respective sub-indexes.
I honestly don't think it woudl be that hard. If you'd like i can conjure up some pseudo code.