Multilingual Sites

I have searched the site to find information on doing multilingual sites in Drupal, but wanted to be sure that my understanding was current.

Reading the old posts, it seems that there is a module (i18n) to allow multilingual sites, but it is not yet supported by the core and requires some alteration to the core code that has significant downsides in terms of compatibility or potential compatibility with other modules. It also seems to be riddled with hacks and workarounds to get around issues in the core code. It also seems that the core developers originally viewed multilingual capability as unnecessary if not outright annoying, but have now included an internationalization component in the upcoming 4.7 that will partially but not completely help address the architecture problems.

The bottom line seemed to be that if offering your site in more than one language is an important consideration, Drupal currently is a less than optimal solution, and it is not clear that the resources and, most importantly, core level commitment are in place to change that. It also seems that the issues are not the type that can be solved at the module development level, because they fundamentally involve core code issues that will not be resolved until the community of core developers agrees on some underlying architecture issues that must be dealt with first. Last but not least, it seems, reading between the lines, that the core developers are unlikely to spend the substantial time and effort necessary to address those issues because they view this as very hard to do and not all that important.

See:
http://drupal.org/node/11051
http://drupal.org/node/29645
http://drupal.org/node/51544

Do I read the old posts correctly or am I understating the internationalization capabilities of Drupal? Are there any developments that change the playing field? Anything going on at Drupal that is equivalent, for example, to the MambelFish multilingual module that is being added to the Joomla core?

This is a make-or-break issue for some sites I have in development that might go up on Drupal but might go up on another CMS, so any help I can get in understanding where things stand would be helpful. I appreciate that Drupal exists, and am content to accept it as it is, making such modest contributions as a non-tech person can make, but I am just trying to make sure I understand where it is.

Thanks for any up to date information you can impart.