Hi there
I would not give up quite yet. It is worth spending some time getting to grips with Moodle's role assignment system, as it is in 1.7 and 1.8. Although this can be a headache to begin with, it allows complete control over who can do what in which part of the system. For example, all your staff intranet "courses" could be organised under one course category, and specific roles can be assigned to staff for these courses so that in the specific context of these courses most staff would have rights similar to students and students would have no rights / access at all - if that's what you want. Unfortunately the role features of Moodle are new and not particularly well-documented yet (no, I'm not stepping forward), but you can really go to the moon with them and you should be able to easy do what you need to no.
I agree metacourses will not do much for you.
Hope this helps a little.
Cheers
Dave