Using local home directories and OD

I'm setting up 10.5 server and OD. I have 10 mac workstations (all 10.4), each with established users and home directories. I have set up new users on the server, in the directory domain the exact same as they are set up on the local workstations (same long name, short name, and password. Obviously they have different UIDs and GIDs). I have user home folder paths set to None, accept the diradmin folder, which is set to /Users.
When I log in as a OD user other than diradmin from a workstation, I see my home folder as "99". I'm not sure why this is, but it appears to create this home folder locally. I don't like this.
When I log in as diradmin from a workstation, it creates a folder home folder called "diradmin" on the local mac. This is better.
Ideally, what I'd like is the home folder always be located on the workstation, even if logging in from a different machine, so preferences, email, tunes, etc. are there. I DON'T want home directories on the server due to bandwidth limitation of our network. I want home directories to say as-is ((on local machines) and just change how users log onto their workstations (using LDAP instead of NetInfo).
Questions:
1. Can I have the same long/short name and password on the workstation, and in the shared directory? If not, will just changing the long name be enough to differentiate, or does the short name also need to change?
2. Is it possible to have my home folders set up as described (living on the local workstation and shared in logging in from a different mac)? If so, how? I've read the apple docs and nothing seems to clearly describe how to do this.
Thanks much.

Let me understand what it is you're trying to do.
You want user 'joe''s home directory to be stored on machine A.
Any time 'joe' logs in on any machine you want it to connect to his home directory on machine A?
Likewise, user 'jane' has her home directory stored on machine B.
When she logs in on any machine you want that machine to connect to her home directory on machine B?
I don't see the difference between doing this and having all the home directories stored on one central machine - you're still using the network to access each user's home directory from a different machine, except maybe for the times when the user logs on to the machine that hosts their own home directory.
It doubtless can be done - just set each user's home directory in Open Directory to be the AFP URL that points to the machine with their home directory, but each machine in the network would have to act as an AFP server to share out the home directory, and you wouldn't have any central control of home directory content for backups, etc.
You'd also need to edit UIDs since that's how all file ownership is tracked. Right now every user probably has the same UID since they're all working on standalone machines. When you move to a central user database that breaks, so you'll need to assign new, unique UIDs to each user in Open Directory, then change all the files in their home directory to match the new UID.

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