so im a bit further forward, i chatted with a few of the folks on #drupal about this and brenda003 came up with the suggestion of using http://drupal.org/project/relativity to link nodes together, which is perfect really. Teaser view, easy linking of products together - very very good.

The only thing it doesn't do, is allow re-ordering of the related nodes, but i think thats only a bounty away.

The site is moving forwards very fast now!