A proper OG for social Drupal

People using sites like facebook, orkut etc or phpscripts like joomla, phpfox etc
have a normal and usual (workflow-type) expectation of how groups can be created
and used.

Not providing that makes thing very confusing.

For example, any Group has basically a forum-like presentation of new threads and replies,
an event calendar, a poll manager. Subscribed/Created Groups are also displayed in the profile
page of an user with "more" link if number of Groups is more than say 10 or 20 or 'x'

The Group creator or owner can upload a Group logo or icon, can also delete any comment
and better scripts allow the owner/creator to 'sticky' a post.

While many of these could actually be done in 4.7 and can still be done in 5.7
the seriously missing things are :

forum-like presentation of new content.
Though there has been discussions and issue submissions and suggestions this
cannot be done by Views, at least by not-so-extremely geeky users. This ability was there
inbuilt till 4.7 and then dropped, making upgradation for OG users to Drupal 5.7 impossible ( or 6 ofr that matter )

the Group owner is helpless when it comes to comments - she cannot edit or delete

The Group cannot upload its icon or banner or logo, cannot add associated Groups, also there
seems to be no communication between the Friend Module ( which provides true social network profile)
and OG so that OGs created or subscribed are not shown in that profile page.

If anyone has code snippets / workarounds PLEASE POST.
Also issue submitted at http://drupal.org/node/257082

This is very critical need of the hour for those who want to use/upgrade Drupal for their social networks.