First pass at a great workflow RFC to rule them all.

I think that might be true in the future, but it's not the "Berkshelf Way" of today that is in pretty widespread use. Every cookbook is a separate repo, and you link them from the Berksfile.

I think you're right long term, though - what you actually want is a series of repositories that have a better structure, and work like you describe. Pretty sure that's going to be a third workflow.