As brought up in places like http://drupal.org/node/1245428, it has been difficult to add columns using the same grid system INSIDE of Omega theme regions (using Panels, Display Suite, etc.), since the regions already have grid-x classes themselves, and hence are already 20px narrower than their containers, leaving not enough space for the desired number of columns within them.
I came up with a solution that's fairly easy to use (and pretty generic), but it could be made more elegant if integrated straight into Omega. Here's what I did:
I created a grid-overrides.css file in my sub-theme.
Then I put in overrides like this:
.container-12 .grid-1.no-gutter {
margin: 0;
width: 80px;
}
Then I can add "no-gutter" to the "Additional region classes" in the Omega settings for a region. Then that particular region will be the full width for its number of columns, without the usual 10px gutter on each side. What that means is I can put grid-based columns INSIDE that region (by defining a wrapper around any field and applying a regular "grid-x" class to it, which is easy with Display Suite) and have them fit, as if the region were just a container, not a grid column itself.
I also added this definition:
.add-gutter {
margin: 0 10px;
}
...which I do need to remember to add to any full-width fields within a no-gutter region, but that's not too hard.

Comments
Are you familiar with .alpha
Are you familiar with .alpha and .omega classes and what they do?
Yes
Yes, but what I wanted was to provide generic, repeating, re-orderable fields. I didn't want to have to manually add alpha to the first in each row and omega to the last, or move those classes around if the fields got re-ordered.
Ditto, I assume, with having Panels create columns and other similar instances (though I don't use Panels).
I did have to add some configuration in other places (the no-gutter on the region and possibly add-gutter if I'm putting something full width within that region), but I felt that overall it made configuration easier and was more flexible.
check out the excellent
check out the excellent module Views column Class. http://drupal.org/project/views_column_class if you're using views to output the fields
Cool
Thanks for the link! That certainly looks like a great solution if the main usage of multi-columns is for Views.
(In my case I do need to solve the problem on more than just views, so I may continue using Display Suite to theme my views as well the fields I already ran into this problem with, using the same solution.)
Views column class sounds
Views column class sounds promising. So far, I achieved this by adding a custom text into my view, excluded the rest of the fields rewrote in the custom text fields using replacement patterns:
<div class="grid-11 suffix-1 alpha"><h2>[title]</h2>
[field_intro]
<ul class="inline-links-left">
<li>[view_node]</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="grid-12 omega"><div class="portfolio-list-image">[field_preview_image]</div></div>
This view sits inside a 24 column zone and allowed me to get items within one view into the grid rather than straight down the page.
Sam.