i d recommend you d stop looking for temporary solutions.. i reckon you should just get a better hosting with a proper apache configuration

I'm totally on board with that. I'd like to talk to my host and see if there's any way to fix the issue before I abandon ship with them altogether. Can you briefly explain what I should ask them to fix?

it maybe anything.. but i'd guess an apache misconfiguration rather than lack/misconfig of a php extension..it might have sth to do with mod_rewrite dunno, i am not very good with server stuff i am more of a front end guy (;

Kill the cat line from your stub file and move it to this part of your skins index.main.php

// add this section
if( is_default_page() )
{
  $cat = 15;
}
// end add

// This is the main template; it may be used to display very different things.
// Do inits depending on current $disp:
skin_init( $disp );

With a tad of luck it'll work ;)

¥

No dice. I'm going to contact my host and ask them if they can determine what the problem is. It would be good if I could give them a description of what's going on though because I'm not really even sure I'm clear on what is actually causing this issue. Can someone tell me what is NOT happening that is supposed to be happening?

I just went ahead and change the site to use multiple blogs like Yabba suggested (I think) and that seems to have fixed the problem. Thanks for everyone's help.