[ic] Options and Modify / Add Widget

[Jon Shoberg]

I was posed an interesting problem and now looking for advise as to a 
possible solution.  For a particular store, product pages should look 
like: (excuse the ascii art)

----------------------------------------
Title   
Image
Description
Root Part number

Part XX Label
XX-123   Description   Price   Checkbox
XX-124   Description   Price   Checkbox
XX-125   Description   Price   Checkbox

Part ZZ Label
ZZ-126   Description   Price   Checkbox
ZZ-127   Description   Price   Checkbox
----------------------------------------

Title, images, and description are obviously taken care of at the admin 
UI.  However, the lower list of options or actual product choices is what 
I'm looking at.

Q) What option style might work the best?

I can see a way to use simple options, though it would be cumbersome.  To 
get the rendering like this I presume a custom widget would have to be 
added?  How might this be done?

Is there a document that describes how matrix options are best used?  
Creating a variant with separate description and price would work best.  
However, they won't render to the product page without adding options and 
their presentation is drop down boxes.  I'm sure something is being missed 
here. Is there a something / someone / document that describes this in 
detail?