So I couldn't help it, I downloaded and installed WP Super Cache because it sounded like an ideal setup for me.. A plugin built to generate static files from php+mysql for Apache to serve the way its supposed to be.. My dream.
So I started digging into the code. Its a form of WP Cache-2, but fork is a generous word at this point. There is some future add-on capability, but the code that actually performs the caching is pretty much the same. Bloated, inefficient, and redundant coding. This plugin could do the same thing with 1 file, no config, no meta, serializing, etc.. But its still a lot better than anything I've created.
I'm very interested in this technology and this is the closest to my ideal that a WordPress plugin has come so far, I might just start from scratch one of these days, once I figure out a few php bits I'm still learning about. If I do decide to make a caching plugin the right way, it will have similar tricks that I used in the Hack WP-Cache for maximum speed post.
The .htaccess generated by WP Super Cache is wack, I'm not even sure how its been working for everyone, I've hacked it up a bit and this is working great for me.. Will definately be updated as I do more debugging.
I used some of the same techniques found here, and here, and these SetEnvIf examples.
# BEGIN WordPress
SetEnv HTTP_IF_GZ_MATCH .html
SetEnvIfNoCase ^Accept-Encoding$ "(.*gzip.*)" HTTP_IF_GZ_MATCH=.html.gz
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} !=200
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !s
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /(.+) HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*(comment_author_|wordpress|wp-postpass_).*$
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/wp-content/cache/supercache/%{HTTP_HOST}/%1/index%{ENV:HTTP_IF_GZ_MATCH} -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /wp-content/cache/supercache/$1/index%{ENV:HTTP_IF_GZ_MATCH} [L,NC]
# END WordPress
# BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !.*s=.*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*comment_author_.*$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*wordpress.*$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*wp-postpass_.*$
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Encoding} gzip
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/wp-content/cache/supercache/%{HTTP_HOST}/$1/index.html.gz -f
RewriteRule ^(.*) /wp-content/cache/supercache/%{HTTP_HOST}/$1/index.html.gz [L]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !.*s=.*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*comment_author_.*$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*wordpress.*$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*wp-postpass_.*$
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/wp-content/cache/supercache/%{HTTP_HOST}/$1/index.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*) /wp-content/cache/supercache/%{HTTP_HOST}/$1/index.html [L]
# END WordPress
It's definately a complex kind of plugin in that there is a lot of directions and a lot going on, so I'm not saying anything bad about the developers, just hope to see some updates over the next few months so I don't have to mess with it.