I did some more fooling around with ACE, but it looks like it's too large and interdependant to try to use just the pieces I need. Too bad, overall I'm pretty impressed by it. After reading the ACE book I picked up Pattern Oriented Software Architecture - Volume 2 - Patterns for Concurrent and Networked Objects (POSA2). It covers a lot of the same things as ACE but from a more abstract perspective.
I've been prototyping a new design for the client-server network code in Suneido based on the ideas from ACE and POSA2. It looks like it'll be an improvement over the current code - cleaner, faster, and more portable.
Been "strongly encouraging" pair programming with my programmers. I don't think they're all totally sold on the idea - I'm not even sure I'm 100% convinced. But I have to say that the more we do it, the more I'm sold on it.
jhill - thanks for certifying me as master - I appreciate the gesture. :-)