Okay, I've dug myself deep into a hole and need some guidance to get myself out.
I'm still developing a module that is similar to the "Book" module, but has a different organization of its nodes. The module is called "Fiction". It's for people submitting chapters to a fictional story that they've written. The book module is not sufficient because it lacks inherent numbering (weights don't serve as a good substitute for a 60+ chapter story) and it permits other people to submit modifications to the story (which should not be allowed). In addition, there are some user interface elements that I want changed.
1) A user creates a "Fiction" type of node, which contains a summary of the fiction. The fiction form has a title, a summary, and taxonomy organization. The data is stored in a node.
2) Users add "chapters" to this fiction, which are similar to book pages. They also have titles, and a body, containing a chapter (of a novel, let's say). They are also stored in a typical node. However, they can not be promoted to the front page (any votes for the chapter promote the "Fiction" top-level node instead). The "chapter" also does not store taxonomy information and is not listed individually. Users may not add chapters beneath other chapters. In addition, only the author gets to add or edit fiction chapters.
There is also a database called "fiction" to list the chapter for each fiction (for an explicit ordering) and the "parent" fiction node.