Object visibility in AutoCad (2008)

Hi all,

I'm thinking about automating the process of managing revision clouds
within drawings (and thence issues and revisions) by logging them into
an enternal database, and I'm just wondering what options there are
for controlling the visibility of individual objects within autocad.

Here are my thoughts so far. In the scenario I'm envisaging, a
'revision cloud' would actually be a 'cloud cluster' something like a
group or maybe a dynamic block (not much experience of either)
comprising both the cloud itself and an associated attribute
indicating what changed and why.

Option 1.
Create a new layer for EVERY revision cloud. Use filters to manage and
obscure these from the CAD operator.
This would end up being a lot of layers.

Option 2.
Create all 'revision clouds' on one non-printing layer. Somehow
automate the process of tracing desired clouds onto a printing later.

Basically, an ideal scenario would be to place all clouds onto one
layer but somehow control the visibility of individual 'cloud
clusters' through some other process. Although several clouds might be
created by the same user at the same time, they would certainly be
provided on xref'd drawings and not all would be of relevance to the
final sheet. I'd like the operator to be able to pick those that were,
and have the reason for those amendments to appear in an 'issues and
revisions' column.

Any thoughts?

I tried posting to alt.cad.autocad simultaneously but an error
appeared, so apologies if I end up with a multipost.