Dave, Let me first qualify that I am not a developer, do not know HTML programming and we have been using Clarizen for only a year. We are still learning but I'm happy to share what we have run into around workflow approvals.
Likewise, our implementation consultant assisted us in building a workflow approval process via interact and warned me that it would be a challenge to maintain since it was more advanced than a new users experience. I am using this process with a combination of full and social licensed users. He was right on. I tried to tweak it on my own and hosed our environment for almost two weeks while my executive team debated approval of a few more PS hours and to pay for a sandbox environment. The benefit was that I learned some valuable lessons in the process. Since then, I have been able to replicate the programming to develop another workflow approval path for a second application. Works great. My problem is that this is built by profile and adding a second application forced me to expand the approval panel populated in the task (it is designed at the task level) to include approvers that are different for each application. This became a training issue to teach users how to select the proper approvers for each application. Our process sends an email when an approver is selected to that approver, the approver can hyperlink into the task or approve/decline from the email. I just completed our renewal and added the ESP to our renewal specifically to help me with enhancing this and other processes. The bank I work for produces volume in the 10's of billions but is primarily outsourced so number of employees is small and we do not have a developer on staff. Unless you have a developer that attended the Clarizen Admin school and stayed for the couple days dedicated to developers, I suggest you pay the cost of PS and use Clarizen experts to help you.
Best,
Kevin