Hi @mbmacdonald,

I checked out the permissions area, and it seems like you could set up an custom observer-based role to do everything on your list.  A couple of caveats about observer-based roles...  1 - Observer based roles can only access the course during the course availability window (not before or after).  2 - When looking at the people area, even though you've given a custom role name, the user would show as "observing: nobody" and not the custom role name you gave.  This may seem trivial, but it confuses a lot of people at my institution (we use an observer-based custom role for waitlisted students).

Hope this helps a bit more!

-Chris