That's a good point, and I've done this for some testing as well. In our example, the SDE is standardized of course, and the Projects and all non SDE data are in the same server (same drive letter, V).
The Save As method works pretty well, other than the additional folder that auto creates when you open it, and since you can "Save As" to a different folder it works much like what we are currently using. Create the project in one area, Save As to the usual directory (V:/Projects in our case), make read only. It works, it just seems like there should be a better method.
I'm still unsure if anything else comes out of this though, if I do it this way, everyone's GP processes that they don't point elsewhere will go to the original project directory I think. That's not a problem, but it could get big over time. More testing to do. Thanks Curt.
GIS - Getting it Surveyed is too expensive.