when I attempt to reorganize my library into new catalog sets I continually run into dead ends.
Wouldn't it be simpler to make one catalog, and then organize things into collections?
Unless you got a very large number of images (50.000 original images is sometimes quoted as a mean limit, ymmv), having only one catalog seems greatly preferable.
Remember that if you make multiple catalogs, the separations between them are
much harder to pass, whereas collections within a catalog can freely intersect and combine.