Multilingual website suggestions

Will try to relate to this as a question, talking about the merits and such of the solutions.

  1. Quite limited, normally it would not change direction, however – you might add some javascript that will dynamically add the dir=”rtl” tags when appropriate
  2. You can do that, very high maintenance but might work best, depending on the content of your site
  3. There are many plugins, not only the one you mentioned (hint, hint) all with their pros and cons, normally this will be the best option.
  4. You can change the locale and have the appropriate .po/.mo files, you may even do so upon request (you have a filter for the locale) but why would you do that when so many plugins do it for you?

I hope this helps.