I always thought the best solution to all this is if we had multiple Facebook accounts, e.g. "Bob Smith (1)", "Bob Smith (2)", etc, and then invited family only

I always thought the best solution to all this is if we had multiple Facebook accounts, e.g. "Bob Smith (1)", "Bob Smith (2)", etc, and then invited family only to (1), close friends to (2), old high school classmates to (3), etc. This way, if any of them posts something stupid on your wall, only that subgroup will know about it. Then, of course, you'd need an app that lets you post the same status update on all your accounts.