WSS default site creation URL question

[Jim Barnes]

In wss, when you edit the url to create sites under when some sites already
exist under the previous URL, the previous sites no longer work - all url's
for all sites are changed to the new default url and you can't change them
back using the "edit site address" feature as the new default url is
prepended to the string you can enter and this can not be overridden. An
example might help: if you create a site under the recommended "/sites" path,
then change the path to something like "/projects", the url for the existing
site will be changed to from "servername/sites/project1" to
"servername/projects/project1". This url is not valid, and any existing
documents in the previous project site can not be accessed, but they are not
deleted from the database. Further, if you go into the "edit site address"
option, you are restricted to entering a site name under
"http://servername/projects/" and can not change this to
"http://servername/sites" from this dialog. additionally, the public
documents site url is changed as well, with the same effect. Changint he
default url in WSS back to "/sites" restores all urls and access to all
related projects sites, libraries, etc. This sucks. Does anyone have a
workaround for this?
Thanks.
Jim