How to manage a Newspaper Front Page?

I am currently given consultancy to a newspaper and there is only one thing that we cannot find a solution that fits the clients needs.

The management of the front page.

This are the requirements:

1) Drag & Drop interface
2) Can attach to the frontpage any type of content defined.
3) User can define new regions to relate content in the front page.
4) User can override a taxonomy term page with the front page
5) Can override the image, title, link and short text associated with the related content in the cover without leaving the front page manager.

We are building this site in Drupal 7 and this are the things we are reviewing:

• Panels:
  Pros: It solves 1 & 3 naturally
  Cons:

  • There is no easy way to relate the content, just add a node. Maybe we can create a plugin to expose this.
  • It has many usability issues, the page administer it not easy to use and not intuitive.

• Define a new entity:
  Create a new entity from scratch, that will be a collection of entity reference fields. and a category field with template suggestions to solve 4). If we define a new type of field (a compound field with an entity reference field, and an image title and like that can be populated with the nodes values and then changed) we can solve 5)
  Pros: solves 1) 2)
  Cons: we cannot find a way to solve 3). it is the most rigid solution.

• Context & Blocks:
  Pros: Solves 1) and 3) naturally. And 4) with the context feature.
  Cons: Not very user friendly, We have to create a custom plugin to solve 2) & 5)

Can you help us solve this puzzle?