Rules/Taxonomy based workflow?

I am having trouble figuring out the exact combination of modules I need to make this workable, and thought I'd see if anyone here would have a better idea and be able to point me in the right direction.

I need essentially a three-stage workflow for new content. Nodes are created and filled with content by an Author, approved/denied by an Editor, and then made live by an Administrator. To add some additional complexity to this, the Author and Editor roles are category-based -- e.g. Sports Author, Sports Editor vs. Tech Author, Tech Editor -- each pair restricted to their particular categories of content.

I've looked at TAClite for user-based taxonomy association but it seems limited to seven "schemes" or categories of content, which is too few.

If I understand it correctly, I need modules to 1) associate taxonomy terms with users, 2) handle the changing of publication status (Rules?), and then some custom views/blocks to display the pending drafts and such to the users.

Does this sound workable/feasible/sane? Thanks in advance for any suggestions/input/questions.