Whole family iTunes library?

I currently have all of my itunes media files stored on a hard drive attached to my airport extreme.  I did this to save storage space on my wife's MB, who had the vast majority of the media.  Quite honestly, I'm not sure I set it up right, or whether this is even a viable setup.  It was working for a while, but yesterday I downloaded a podcast that wreaked havoc and now my computers can't find the media.  All the files are still there, but for some reason iTunes is just not seeing them. 
So my question becomes - should I just re-work the entire network and do this in a more manageable fashion?
A little background.  I have both an airport extreme and airport express (bridged off extreme).  Running on the network are 1 iMac, 1 macbook, 1 MBPr (when it gets here today),  1 MBP, 1 ATV, 2 iPhones and 2 iPads.  I'd like to avoid having to keep the media files on the computers to save hard drive space, although I could use the iMac if necessary (it's set not to sleep anyway).  I haven't wanted to use home sharing exclusively because I don't like the interface (just not the same as it is if it's on my computer), and the fact that I can't sync my iphones and ipads. 
I'd like to be able to have each of the computers remotely access the media on the network drive, and basically use it just like it was on each of the respective computers hard drives.  What's the best way to accomplish this?  And since the media is already on the network drive, when I get my new computer today, is there any way that I can just add it?
Any info/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 

This configuration is tough because it can cause a bevvy of permissions issues and library corruption. When multiples computers are modifying the same library on an external drive, there can be issues. I relented and set-up my iMac to serve my data via Home Sharing/iTunes Match, I found this to be much easier to manage on multiples devices with my wife.

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