A client is looking for a custom web application, which will eventually include lots of interconnected components, but the main features are:
- Subscription based membership as well as virtual/digital product sales
- Members have their own public web cookie-cutter directories (e.g., storefronts, pages, etc.) and personal member admin area.
- Site administrators will need both common tools (member admin, password changes, etc.) and custom tools that can be readily developed or integrated with 3rd party solutions.
What frameworks should we be looking at? PHP/MySQL is preferable unless something really outstanding is available in another stack.
Take a look here for some of the more popular PHP frameworks: http://www.phpframeworks.com/
These typically give you a lot of tools but allow for a lot of flexibility.
Some CMS-like frameworks such as as Drupal may be able to satisfy your requirements as well. They will be less flexible, but may be a better option if modules exist for your use cases.
No silver bullet, just lots of options.