Can I use SharePoint Workflow on SPGridView? at 5:00 PM

Nowadays, it is quite easy to find articles about how beautiful it is to use Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Workflow and InfoPath to manage Documents or List.

But I am too poor to buy MOSS 2007 and InfoPath, is it possible to use WSS 3.0 Workflow frame to manage normal business objects (e.g. purchase orders, law suit cases) in an ASP.NET SPGridView on a WSS 3.0 site? Or to say, can I build a WSS Workflow and related ASP.NET pages (Workflow Association, Instatiation, Modification, and Task Edit pages) in Visual Studio, then use that workflow for each item of an ASP.NET SPGridView and modify data stored in a standalone database (not WSS Content database)?

From my current understanding, the answer is: No, because SharePoint Workflow processes SPListItem, not item of SPGridView; and of course, you are not supposed to create task from your code because the task is of SPWorkflowTask type that can only be created from SPWorkflow.

Ok ... fine. How about creating a SharePoint List to hold my business objects but I need save my business objects in a separate database?

Well ... To use SharePoint List, you have to create list columns inside SharePoint Content database, not in other databases.

&*%*^%%^$

So from my current understanding, if I want to use WSS 3.0 workflow framework for my own business objects in a standalone database (S_DB), I have to create a List and several columns (for display and search purposes) in WSS site. Those columns are duplicated because they are already defined in database S_DB.

When user starts workflow on the list item, the workflow (Instatiation) ASP.NET page will use ADO.NET code to load other fields from database S_DB. Then the ASP.NET page should save updated data back to S_DB, and at the same time save the data of the List columns to WSS Content database too.

Is there a better way to avoid data duplication in WSS Content database and the other standalone database?