Jan Steinman wrote:
How about a single line in LocalSettings.php that includes a "don't touch me" file that is maintained only via the ExtensionManager?
Rather than mucking about excessively with LocalSettings.php and global variables, consider using a more object-oriented approach and taking advantage of Wiki.php. It's there to help eliminate globals but isn't used much yet. If ExtensionManager is a proper class, you could have Wiki.php instantiate a singleton and have it handle _all_ extension stuff (including burying things like $wgAutoloadClasses, $wgSpecialPages and $wgHooks handling for extensions) as well.
Mike