Draketools, Webmin
I started with Draketools and Mandriva back in the day. Webmin is good for doing the config work though and removes the need for an X install. The config file is also pretty strait forward so these days it's direct to text more often than through a tool.
With #9, I'd suggest looking at how the connection is handled. I had trouble with perminent mounts getting disconnected then not reconnecting. The solution was smb4s within a GUI or an auto-mount tool outside of GUI so that I'd get an ad-hoc connection when entering the mount directory.