Using a multi-drive SATA enclosure on a Mac with just Firewire?

I currently have four external hard drive enclosures, loaded up with 14 500GB drives. The current 1TB+ drives only seem to come as SATA drives, so I need to migrate to SATA enclosures that hook up via Firewire.
The problem is, such cases don't seem to exist at comparable prices. I was able to get four-drive IDE to Firewire enclosures for under $200, and they are much much more to get similar SATA drive enclosures.
USB is an option, and cheaper, but USB takes more CPU time and is slower than Firewire, and that's a showstopper for video work. THe data copy I did last night via Firewire took 9 hours... I can't imagine stepping back to USB 2.0 (and yes, it's an old debate, but benchmarks show USB 2.0 is slower even if is supposedly faster on paper).
I have searched all over for Firewire to SATA adapters, and so far have found only two types:
FirmTek SeriTek/SpyderHUB - $120
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-spyder/
Input USB or Firewire, and outputs two SATA ports. But, it does not support "Port Multiplier" cases, so you really can only hook up two seperate SATA drives to it. No good.
The other is from COOL DRIVES, with a $30 model and a $60 model:
http://www.cooldrives.com/sata-to-firewire-usb-mini-converter.html
The $30 model (above) is a USB or Firewire to SATA, period. The $60 model adds a Firewire pass through:
http://cooldrives.stores.yahoo.net/satofimiad2x.html
The $60 model claims to support up to 1000GB (1TB) drives, and the $30 says only 500GB, so neither is good if I plan to move to 1.5TB drives.
So my goal is to be able to buy a multi-SATA drive enclosure, and plug it up to Firewire. The problem is price. A 4-bay SATA-Firewire enclosure is much, much more than the same model that is USB/SATA. For instance:
2-drive SATA to Firewire/USB - $161
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215067
2-drive SATA to USB - $119
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215056
So $30 more lets me buy a four drive firewire/IDE enclosure. SATA/IDE converters for each drive (to use my existing case) can be $16 each, so that's not really an option with 14 drives either.
So my thought is -- buy a cheap multi-drive modern SATA enclosure, then use a Firewire to SATA adapter -- way cheaper than the other solutions.
I can't be the only one who has wanted to do this, but no one seems to know if it works (including the companies selling the stuff).
Anyone done it?

An update of my experimentation:
http://web.me.com/allenhuffman/Appleause/Home/Entries/2009/1/17FireWire_to_SATA_adapters_for_theMac.html
CoolDrives device does not support Port Multiplier enclosures, so it can only address one hard drive at a time. Bummer.
If anyone would come out with a FireWire 800 to eSATA (with Port Multiplier support), it would be a fantastic solution to this.

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