InDesign's auto-handling of parallel texts in parallel columns

Question

Everyone I have asked this question of says -- "I am not exactly sure what you are trying to do ..."   So PLEASE READ CAREFULLY.
I was told that Indesign could handle this easily.  Adobe's East Indian support had no idea what I was talking about.  Their U.S. office failed to respond.
When you develop a book length project (400 pages or so) of 4 parallel texts, there is NO REASON whatsover why you would want EVEN pages to wrap over to ODD pages.  You typically have 2 columns holding 2 *different* texts on the left (even) page, and you also have 2 totally different columns holding another 2 totally *different* texts on the (odd) right pages.  So in facing page mode, you see 4 different texts ALL in parallel with each other.
The consequences of this seems SO hard for most people to understand.  It means the 2 columns of texts on the LEFT (even) page will ALWAYS stay on the left page, no matter which page of the book you turn to, and the 2 columns of texts on the right page will ALWAYS stay on the right pages.
There is NO WRAPPING from even pages onto odd pages, and vice versa.  What is in column 1 of the even page ALWAYS stays in column 1 of every even page in the book.  When you turn the pages of the book, everything aligns perfectly -- the left 2 texts are in parallel with the right 2 texts.
I can't see why people have so much problem understanding this SIMPLE book layout, of 4 parallel texts spread across 2 facing pages -- which is VERY common in scholarly texts. Nevertheless, they do.  So if you don't see what I am asking for, please re-read the above until you do.  Now, I was told that Indesign can do this easily, but Adobe staff have failed to respond.  So let me ask you Indesign experts in this forum the crucial question --
If you set up a 4 page layout, where the 2 columns in the left (even) page of page 2 wraps down to the left (even) page of page 4 (no, not page 3) -- and the 2 columns in the right (odd) page of say page 3 wraps down to page 5 (no, not page 4) -- can you get the program to make this layout persist over 400 pages without the user having to laboriously link, page by page, every even page to the next even page, and every odd page to the next odd page?
More specifically, if I have 4 columns spread across 2 facing pages, and I tell Indesign that page 2 columns wrap to page 4 columns (no, not to page 3 columns), and I link page 3 columns to page 5 columns (no, not page 4 columns)  -- CAN INDESIGN realize this is a pattern that repeats throughout the entire book, and do it automatically for me???  My people are simply NOT going to understand how to link odd to odd pages and even to even.
i.e. I need to set up a 4 page layout, which gives the even-to-even linking, and the odd-to-odd linking, and after that the PROGRAM ITSELF needs to be smart enough to realize that this is the layout that you want for 4 parallel columns .... and it replicates it on all pages, until you tell it otherwise.
So the question is -- can Indesign do this or not??  It is a simple YES / NO answer.  Either Indesign can recongize the layout for 4 pages (i.e. two facing pages replicated to the next 2 facing pages) and keep this layout going for the length of the book -- or it cannot.  It is either one or the other.
If I have to laboriously link EVERY odd page frame in the book to every odd page, over 400 pages, and I have to link every even page frame in the book to every subsequent even page -- then we have a serious mental gap with the developers of the program.  Anyone who has worked with multiple parallel texts knows that this is the NORM for multiple parallel book texts.  The problem I am having is finding a program whose developers comprehend this.
Please realize, I have gone through about 30 programs, and YES, I am frustrated.  If Indesign can do this easily without me having to mindlessly create 400 repetitive page-frame to page-frame links that should be obvious to the program (and its developers) then please say: "YES it can do this for you."
Thank you for your knowledgeable help -- without getting upset that I have struggled over the past 2 months to make people realize this simple need.

Answer 1

Hey Joel, nice post, thank you.  If you look for scratchyboy or "scrathcyboy" on the web, you will see I am a hardware and M$ software guru.  There is almost nothing about windows I can't fix or tear to pieces.  But why windows would destruct on installing SP2 -- I have never figured that out yet !!
"It sounds like the the CS4 functionality and AFP will work well for you; do you have a second computer to use as a testbed?"
I have a network of 10 computers, each dedicated to special functions.  I thought of Win7 on one, but decided not to, because of no efficiency advantage (see the best XP-W7 comparison -- http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Windows/Windows_7/Q_2525764 2.html).
"In your shoes, I might try to do it more cheaply"
THANK YOU for sugesting this, it was on my mind since this morning.  Between monitor and software, we are pusing $2000 here, and since my ORG is non-profit, I probably won't recover that outlay.  So let me ask you -- and EVERYONE ELSE too -- something that has been bugging me ....
Why can't a Word Processor do this??  I know this is an InDesign forum, but you guys are the sharpest I have met, so let me lay it out for you .. and hold your breath !!  The first parallel column book I ever produced was written in WORDSTAR for DOS ( ... Gasp !!! ....)  and with Wordstar's DOT commands, hell, I could do anything I wanted ... font kerning, multi-column layout, even odd pages wrapping to odd pages, and even to even.
This, as it turns out is the achilles heel of all modern word processors.  The developers (yes they are to blame for lack of experience) NEVER conceived of parallel columns, and since they did not understand parallel texts, they never realized this obvious -- "hey if you have 2 different parallel texts on the even pages and 2 other ones on the odd pages -- then suddenly the page wrap model changes -- it then becomes illogical to wrap even to odd pages.
So I have tried just about every word processor but PageMaker (never liked it, maybe you guys can help here??) -- the only two WPs that attempt to grasp parallel columns are Lotus WordPro, and Corel Wordperfect (which I found unstable and unusable for long texts of more than 15 pages or so).
If you look at my layout above, it is really quite basic -- 2 parallel "discussions" on the left page, aligned with 2 parallel texts on the right page.  There is nothing here a word processor should not be able to handle ... except for their ONE achilles heel -- they all seem to insist on forcing every even page to wrap to the next odd page number ... blindly NEVER considering a 4-parallel-column layout spread across facing pages, as ALL books display.
So how about PageMaker 7?  Can it do this?  I have bought and acquired so much Adobe software (I was an early beta tester for Photoshop) that I have never used ... I sure would like to make some use of it, even if years old.  All I need is a WP that can do 4 columns split 2 on the left, 2 to right.  It is really that simple, and all the WP has to do is realize if the left page texts differ from the right, you do NOT wrap even to odd, only even to even.
So HOW ABOUT IT GUYS???  If you can't figure this out, hell, there is no group of people I know who can figure it out.  So LAY ON McDUFF ....