Learning Hubs via Panels

Hello All,
I have posted this in several places, but since this group is dedicated to Panels directly, I thought I might get more input here.

I am in the process of creating an educational site, and would like to provide something called a "learning hub". In essence, it's almost a mini-site within the site.

Let's say my site's topic is pets, with a menu with -Dogs-Cats-Reptiles-Fury Odd Things, etc.; a user visits the site and clicks Dogs. When the User clicks the link, they are taken to a page that has 3 or so columns. On the left, a block with a menu of links to informational pages about Dogs, below that, a random factoid box, and so on and so forth. In the center column, the actual "content" is displayed, in the right column would be resources, etc.

I am sure views will be my friend.

So here are my questions.
1.How should I set it up so each time the user clicks a link to a informational item, it displays in the middle column, should I clone the panels, and place the different content within the various panels? Perhaps I could use tabs, but for some reason that feels wrong.

2.How do I set it up so a user can "subscribe" to that hub? Is there perhaps a setting that auto-creates a RSS Feed for the page?

3.I've read that panels as pages can get intensive, what are the best steps to keep my load times down?

4.I'd like to display a block containing "most read" items in the hub, how could this be done?

5.Any suggestions for useful modules for creating the Hubs? I have found the Menu Block Module which will be quite nice for placing menus in the panels.

Thanks,
Devon