Best way to create child nodes from within parent node?

I've recently been investigating the possibility of using Drupal for a simple LIMS for our lab. I've looked at the various open-source LIMS options, and everything seems like overkill for our purposes. All I need is simple job tracking as a sample moves between various stages of prep/analysis/QA/QC, and I thought Drupal might fit the bill nicely.

Currently, we rely on paper forms for tracking samples. Technicians fill out a "COC" (Chain of Custody), add samples to it, and the whole COC is moved about the lab.

To duplicate this behavior, I created a content type called COC, and a few various Sample content types, both using CCK. My plan was to craft the Sample content types specific to the analysis, so there's a "ICP Sample" content type, "XRF Sample" content type, etc.

Now, what'd I'd like to do is have "COC" as a parent content type, and all the various "Sample"s as child content types. This is easy enough using CCK and node_reference.

However, the workflow is sort of clunky. A technician has to create Sample content types, then the COC content type, and find all the newly-created Samples to add to the COC.

What would be great is if, when a technician hit the COC "create content link", they would be presented with all of the COC fields, PLUS have the option to add Samples on the fly, from within the body of the COC creation page. Further, it would be awesome to have these various Samples referred to as child nodes from the COC itself.

So far, I've messed around with various modules, and haven't found anything that fits the bill yet. I can't imagine this idea is too foreign for anyone implementing a LIMS in Drupal. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how this might be accomplished?

Thanks for the help!