Anyhow I compiled a vanilla bukkit server running mc version 1.5.1 (the latest) It is fully functional and made spawn unbreakable/explodable. The permissions are fully working and set up and can be changed in game as with most of the important things you would have to do.
So far the plugins installed are:
Core Protect
Essentials(Core,Chat,Protect,Spawn)
World Edit
World guard
PermissionsEx (PEX)
PVP Protect
all plugins are configured correctly and have permissions given out on a group basis, IE: Admins have full control and world edit, Members have moderate control, Users have basic abilities and simple commands, with every new user having no ability to do anything. There is also donator groups which would offer incentives like fly and warps/tpa to help raise money for server costs or whatever.
Features:
Complete anti-grief system with CP and world guard.
No need for whitelist because before a players group is changed they can't build or anything but explore and chat.
All perms can be done while in-game so very little file editing would actually be done.
Ability to incorporate a donation system.
Complete bukkit server so it's compatable with all mods and plugins just about.
PVP protect stops players who are flying/god/creative from PVPing
Groups:
Noobs
Friends
Members
Donators
VIP
Admins
The donator group gives you all the friend perks with tpa, warp, and home available to them
The VIP's will have all donator perks plus warplist, sethome,kit,back,backondeath. And perhaps if they have a good building portfolio allow them basic world edit features.
I was thinking like 10$ for donator and 20$ for vip, but we would have a build a decent playerbase first.
Why bukkit? Well its more robust and versatile, Think souremods but for MC. Using bukkit we are able to install much more third party mods and plugins that MC just wont work with. But since there are no mods installed all you have to do is conect to it from your normal MC launcher. If in the future we wanted to add mods like Buildcraft or IE3 and so on, we would just have to make a custom jar file which is easy to do. Essentially tekkit is just a bukkit server that pre configured with a bunch of mods, however it's no longer being updated and FTB is always a version or so behind. Plus any of the mods we wanted from them we can install and make a custom jar to give to people to load in tekkit.
Now at this point we could take the server in any direction. We can set up a economy system or have factions or even a build server with lots of arenas to teleport to... We would need alot of dedication ad a great world/server to get popular but once we do just think of all the rich kids who will wanna fly
Oh and of course its hardcore
ALternatively I still have a tekkit server that has buggy perms, but now i have a complete understanding of how it's done and can fix it without trouble.
