k,
I think you are on the right track. There are a many ways that you could incorporate workgroup referencing with VW depending on how you draw a typical project.
What we do is break down a project by plans/elevations/sections/details/etc... where each of those get a separate vw file. I then reference all those files into a print set vw file where all my viewports/drawing labels/ title blocks live. This way I can open this print set file, update and print the entire set while others are working on the referenced files.
This seems to work for us and is quite flexible for the many different project sizes we have. If we were to ever get a very large project where it would not make sense to bring all the referenced files into one print set file, then I could imagine adapting this method to have multiple print set files such as Arch, Mech, Elec, Struct.
Just keep in mind that this is something that you will need to see what works best for you. You could break the files down however you like.